verbomaniac (poetry + short stories)

monsters -> short story

[ M O N S T E R S ]
a short story about fear

I used to be afraid of the monsters under my bed and in my closet. Every night I'd curl up in my blankets and for once I'd feel calm, but moments later I'd catch a glimpse of something hiding behind my door, something created of shadows spilling out of my bed, reaching up with deadly fingers to claw at me. I'd scream, and Grandpa would come rushing in and ask me what was going on.

I wouldn't be able to speak. Adrenaline and terror would paralyze me. I'd sit up, panting, as Grandpa flicked the switch and flooded the room in artificial light. The monsters backed away, weakening under the pale haze, but I'd know they were still there.

"Tommy, what's going on?" Grandpa would murmur, sitting next to me.

I'd look at him with the cold terror I felt plummeting through my chest, not the same fiery fear I'd feel moments earlier, but a lurking dread instead my stomach. That look told him, and he instantly gave me a hug and showed me the closet and the bed and reminded me: there were no monsters. My grandfather was a liar.

I was five when I first saw the monsters, when I first noticed the things of darkness sneaking up upon me. These monsters continued to terrorize my nights, because even when Grandpa reassured me and proved there were no monsters, I knew the moment he turned off the light, they would come back. By age nine, I finally dismissed them; finally insisted there was nothing to be afraid of beneath the bed and in the closet.

I grew, and as the years passed my fears thinned. I stopped being afraid of the monsters of the bed—until I realized the true monster was in the bed, in my body.

The monsters resided in me, and in the mirrors, and in all my reflections.

The monsters under the bed didn't scare me when I learned to fear the monster inside of me.

I wanted to get rid of the monster. I dug into my skin, I wished the monster would seep out with my dark blood, but every time I looked in the mirror I saw the monster. The things under my bed no longer made sleep a distant memory; it was the constant reminders that the only monster to be afraid of was me, the one trapped inside me, the one I couldn't rid myself of because I was the monster.

There was no monster inside of me, because I was the monster, from my skin to my blood to the organs inside of me. I couldn't sink a knife into my skin and hope for the monster to disappear like gas from a tank, because that skin was part of the monster. The porcelain of my flesh did not shield the rest of the world from the monster—the monster was everything of me. The monster was me.

And the more I felt like a monster, the more I became a monster, the more I slid into the suit I'd created myself. I told myself I was a monster and I became a monster and the monster took over every part of me until there was no turning back.

The more I became a monster, the more I was treated like a monster, and the horrible poison running through my veins fed off that. The poison spread to my heart and my lungs and my bones until I breathed monster and I felt monster and I was monster.

Sometimes I wish for the monsters under my bed, just to take a break from being afraid of me.