Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. In a delightful comic sequence, the pair become acquainted, and “he world began to feel a little less strange.”Ī home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature. She’s imagined him after all, as evidenced by the picture he retrieves for her, which is of himself handing her a picture. Lo and behold, he meets his special friend, Alice. Feeling sad, he climbs a tree, and from his perch, he hears a voice calling to him. But even here, he still cannot find his special friend.

Everything changes when he arrives at a playground awash in color and sees children playing with their imaginary friends-many of whom had been on his island. Perspectives that often isolate the tiny Beekle in corners or surround him with large figures accentuate his loneliness. Upon arriving at a port city, he observes adults going about their daily lives in monochrome, dingy settings that lack any spark of color or vitality.

If an imaginary friend is unimagined, does it become a real friend?īeekle (a crowned white gumdrop of lovable cuteness) lives on a fantastic island with other creatures “waiting to be imagined by a real child.” After seeing his companions leave, one by one, Beekle loses faith that he will ever “be picked and given a special name,” and so he does “the unimaginable” and ventures forth to find his friend.

In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu