John.
Once upon a time, there was a silly boy. This silly boy had very few ideas about how the world ran, but thought a lot about how it should be run. In this way, he had a fair good bit of thinking done on his part for what the future should or could hold. He had ideas which often came to nothing, and few things in his life had been complete. Sometimes he couldn't even finish his sentences properly because his mind would shoot off on another tangent, and he would take a long time to find himself back where he was before.
The boy only knew one thing for sure about himself, and that was when he would die. He found little comfort in it, because he knew he would never get anything done in his life, and understood exactly how much time he had left with which to get nothing done. It always made him angry to think about just how little the time he had to spend on thing in the real world.
One day, he met a friend who understood him. This friend of his was invisible to most anyone, except the people who already knew he was there, which was after they had been told. The boy himself had never been told, but knew it somehow without actually hearing it from somebody who was already aware. It was very rare for anyone to see the invisible person, for they had gone to great lenths to make sure anyone who knew their secret wouldn't tell anyone else who might cause problems or issues that invisible folk often worry about.
The boy loved his invisible friend. They often spoke about things that other boys and girls his age didn't understand, or never worried about. He had understood things from his invisible friend that other people took for granted, but he understood the true meaning of those things. For instance when the boy asked John (as his invisible friend was called by the silly boy) why trees grow up. "Well," he said, after a long while, "I was told before that trees grow up because humans do. If we grew down, people wouldn't respect their elders, because they would always have to look down to see them properly."
"But John, do the trees really get to choose if they grow up or down?"
"Of course they do. Trees aren't like normal people, because they get a lot of choice in the matter of growing. Some are short, others tall. They follow some of the more basic rules of living, such as finding time to shed a coat near winter, and putting on fresh ones in spring. But they, out of most anyone else, get to choose to grow up."
He didn't really understand John completely, but he knew enough to nod and act otherwise. It was often strange for him, because John often wasn't seen by his friends. Even when he told some of them, they couldn't see him, or recognize that he was there in any way. He knew why, because even after all the years he knew him, the silly boy didn't see John at all. He knew when he was near, and understood him when he spoke, but could never quite say exactly where he was or what he was doing.
One day, the silly boy met a cute girl. Unlike before, he found himself enjoying being around her more than anyone else. He'd often played with girls before, but for some reason, this one was special, and he couldn't say why. When he knew she would be around for a while, and felt like she would take him seriously, he told her about John.
"I have a friend here, Anna." Her name was something much longer, but he couldn't pronounce it anyway, so he just called her Anna, or sometimes Ann.
"Really? Where is he?"
"He is already here. His name is John."
Anna looked around, quite puzzled that she hadn't noticed John before. She searched for him high and low, but couldn't find him at all, even though he was in the room the whole time.
"So where is John? I don't see him."
"Well, you don't really see him." He said, embarrased.
"Do I smell him? There is something funny smelling in the air."
"No, that was my Mom, she put a candle going before you got here. You don't smell him or see him."
"Well, does he talk much? I don't hear him either."
"John, say hi to Anna."
But John refused. Even though John was in the room, Anna didn't really believe he was real, and John knew that. If she couldn't trust her friend to tell her the truth, regardless of his general lack of proof, John didn't want to be friends with her. So, John stayed silent.
"Come on, John, say hi! Please?"
Still John was quiet. The silly boy asked for hours if John would just say high, so that she could hear him too, but he refused.
"I think he wants you to believe he is there before you can hear him."
"How can I believe he is here if I can't hear him? Or see him? Or even smell him?"
"But what if you tried just believing a little bit? Please, Anna?"
Anna sat quietly for a while, trying to will herself into believing that John was there. It took a long time before she finally decided to close her eyes and sit down. After a while, she got up.
"There: I believed sincerely, and still can't see him."
"Are you sure you tried?"
For all Anna was, she rarely ever lied. Once or twice of course, but she often spoke the truth. She really didn't believe in John, or that the silly boy had really become aware of him or anything like that. To her, it didn't make any sense to have a friend you can't see or hear or smell, and expect somebody else to believe in them too, just because you said so. It was just another silly game, and one that had quickly become very boring.
"I tried, I really did, but I don't see him. Are you sure he is real?"
Something strange in the silly boy stirred. What if he had been imagining John this whole time? What if John wasn't real, and he had been talking to nothing while his friends laughed at him for believing he had a friend who was invisible? Suddenly, he felt really terrible. She had cast his whole friendship into a world of question and strangeness. He even felt sick to his stomache.
"I don't know Anna."
The silly boy looked around his room, and suddenly, John wasn't there. Normally, he could feel him somehow, or understand and comprehend that he was, but suddenly he couldn't. Then, he understood that he too doubted that John existed at all, and so could not see him anymore. He felt foolish for believing in him in the first place, and he really couldn't think of a reason why he didn't see it before how silly he had been. Suddenly, he looked up, and saw Anna there, the cute girl who had brought him away from his friend John, the cute girl he had talked to for so long, and didn't really see how he saw her now. He also started to remember something, something else he had forgotten somehow, even though he heard it on a daily basis.
It was his name. The name his mother used on a daily basis, and one he had used for his invisible friend all this time.
"Anna?"
"Yes, John?"
"Wanna go outside and ride bikes?"
She beamed back at him, nodding her heard vigerously. John and Anna held hands going out the door, and rode bikes all day. It had been then, when he came home, when John had forgotten all about his invisible friend, that he died. He ceased to be, and was new again. He wasn't sure how he knew, or what exactly it was that he knew before he was John, but he knew it would end eventually, and that he would die. So he did, and was then John.