Tobias

(Excerpt from thread, posted by user "Moggy" at 02/12/10(Fri) 18:48)

I believe I once had a guardian, from when I was about 5 or 6 to 13-14. His name was Tobias, and he was an angel.

I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, from when I started school, even, and I'd had a pretty troubled
home life with divorced parents, who absolutely hated eachother's guts. Anyone in the same
situation will know, and maybe even those who don't - it's like being torn in two between your two
parents, and you just want it to stop and you want to be a family again, like all the kids at school
have. Regardless - I had my own little 'happy place'. I'd close my eyes when it was dark and hide
under the covers, and I'd lul myself into a half-sleep. I'd open a secret little cupboard in my room
that wasn't there, and I'd step down the 13 steps. The door to this place was very big and wooden,
but it was light as a feather despite looking so heavy. It was there, in a little room inside my head,
that I first found Tobias. (continuing, i'll type as I go)

For the first year, Tobias (never, ever Toby) always wore a burlap sack over his head. He had two
stumps on his back with a feather or two still on his back, which is how I know he had to have been
an angel, or something posing as one. He was very nice to me and he humoured my silly childish
games and jokes. He never really talked, just sort of mumbled and slurred, but I could always
understand a word. It kind of sounded like my grandad, who had a major stroke and could barely
speak, but very quiet, in a sort of raspy whisper.

When I was 6 or 7, a year after I met him, I went to see Tobias and he wasn't there. He vanished
for a long time, and then he just sort of… followed me around, I guess. I always thought of him as
an imaginary friend, but I think he turned out to be more than that in the end. Six months or so later,
I go to check on him and he is there, but the burlap sack wasn't any more. I can't really describe his
face - it was sort of just a series of wrinkles and stitches that formed a vague outline of a human
face. I don't ever remember being scared, is the thing - it wasn't him that was scary, it was the
things that he sometimes DID. As unbecoming of an angel that wreaking havoc is, he did it. (cont)

He helped me through my life, I think. He gave me the little bit of back bone to kick the bullies back,
and he'd sort of croon inside my head, even during the day when I couldn't see him. I got to about
12, and made my first really really best friend, who I eventually 'fell in love' with. Tobias started
being cruel to me about here - my first panic attack was about 2 months or so after I met her, and
they continued for a good year afterwards. I would sometimes have dreams of him running me
through with needles or pounding my face into a rock, and I feel as if my skin is still scarred in
places. (About a week after the first needle-running dream I had a strange virus that made my skin
hypersensitive to the point where my clothes touching my skin was painful enough to render me
sobbing in agony. It's still there to some extent - people cannot rub my arms affectionately any
more, because it just HURTS - not as intensely, but it stings.)

Though, I still don't necessarily think that he was a bad creature. He hasn't come back to visit me in
years and years now, and I think he was only trying to deter me from 'falling in love'. I haven't had a
single panic attack since he vanished. Proof that not all guardian angels do thier 'thing'
constructively, but I still feel as if the experience made me a better person to some extent. (fin.)

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