Write a love-hate story between the monster under the bed and the monster in the closet.
I am Fear. I am Dread. I am the Monster that lives in his closet. And I am failing.
She is the reason I am failing. She lives beneath his bed. She whispers sweet nothings in his ears. She sings him to sleep. When his little foot peeps out from the covers, she slips it gently back between the sheets before I can grab it. I do not know where She comes from. I do not know how the boy tamed Her. Perhaps it was his mother, inventing a new fairy tale, reassuring him, “Yes there is a monster under the bed. She keeps it clean and free from dust bunnies. Do not fear. She’s a friendly monster.”
I am not a friendly monster.
And I am failing.
She keeps me from him. I try to get close, to hover over him, to creep up from behind, but every time she surrounds him, shelters him.
It breaks my heart.
Every night I try to explain. She watches me in silence. She does not move, does not respond. Possibly she does not hear.
I try to explain. I do only my duty. I was created for him. I am his Monster, his first one. Children need fear. To prepare them. Children need monsters to defeat. Because a few years from now, that child will not be a child. He will grow and he will forget and he will face a world that is more painful and cruel than any fright I could give him. Children cannot control their world, and the cruelties adults inflict, or simply fail to prevent. I do not create fear. It exists, everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies, all the uncertainties of the world. I merely shape it, give it an image. I give the child a battle to fight. To win.
This creature, who is lovely to be sure, who glows and twinkles and has no claws, this creature, made up of faith and confidence, made up of adult lies and, yes, a glint of anger—impossible not to be drawn to this creature, who offers reassurance and warm breath and the scent of peppermint.
And I am a boogeyman, with all that implies. And I must do my duty. I fight her, night after night. The boy needs me. She cannot protect him always. And if I do not exist, there is nothing for him to defeat. Instead the fear will settle over him in a cloud, indefinable, insidious. It will cover him like sand, like burs.
I give fear its shape, but I am not Fear. I am Courage.
Holy frickle frackle
gaud you’re messed up but you can fuckin write
i can fuckin write because i’m messed up 😀
Gaud I’m pretty sure you’d just come out of my closet and ask for a cheeto, and if I didn’t have one you’d steal my underwear.
not to be rude but i was more hoping for doritos
Tag: Gaudy writes
You, an atheist, have died. All the gods that have ever been line up to offer you their version of heaven if only you believe in _them_. Turns out souls are currency and yours is up for grabs.
There are many Gods. They speak, and I am tired. A mass of voices coiling around me, each telling their own tale. They speak over one another, they talk to me, they do not listen. And I am tired.
Currency. Is this what I am to them?
They will not stop speaking. They offer me things. They will take me to my loved ones. They will gift me joy and music. They will have me serve, in their armies, in their choirs. Some tell me stories of how they made me. From clay. From nothing at all. Some tell me they love me, small as I am, that I am their creation and so their child.
Above all, they repeat their stories. They talk incessantly of their power, their battles, of the ways and reasons they are feared. How long will they talk? Time does not happen here. It is so much effort to stay. Effort to maintain. Effort to exist.
So many Gods. Gods whose names I had already heard. Modern Gods whose human disciples still speak their names. Obscure Gods whose stories were written on tablets, on scrolls, thousands of years before, whose only proof and records were discovered underground, in caves, in ancient lands. Every God there ever was. They are all here with me. They have been talking for years. They repeat their stories. Their stories are important to them. They demand, plead for my attention.
I died knowing I was dying. I died as I lived, believing in no Creator, no great demiurge, and no final salvation from death. Knowing that gods were stories we told. I believed only in the universe. That it existed before me and would continue without me.
And it has.
The voices scream their stories. Why are they so desperate for me? Despite their insistence, I know what I knew before. My truth is unchanged. My truth is of the universe, of its physics and particles, of its probable beginnings, of its possible ends. Of the simple fact of existence.
These gods are not my creator. I was created by a long line of life, of unlikely Life happening and colliding and continuing. Eons. Three, four eons, billions of years all lined up behind me, all of my predecessors, their lives and their stories, they are my chapters and I am their sum. I am the story of Life, in all its improbably glory. And gods are as old as humans, but I am as old as Life, and Life is much older.
I think I’ve solved it. I think I know why they seek us. They want what Life wants. To exist. To continue. They need their legends told, at any expense, because:
We wrote them. I said before: gods are stories that we write and tell. We are their Creators. And this is why they scream for me, for my ears, for my attention. Stories exist only so long as they are told. Gods exist only so long as they have a listener. And I know they have nothing to offer me. There are no rooms, there are no gates, there are no hallways, no crowds for me to join. They only keep me here to listen. If I accept an offer, what then? Will they stop speaking, disappointed, and leave me? Will they keep delaying? Will the god of my choice sweep in, desperate, and keep me here as long as I can be convinced?
All of my being is tired. Life is not meant to persist this long after it is through. My presence and existence, temporary from the start, is loosening and loosening. All of my pieces beg to be released. I was not made to last.
I am through. I have given these voices enough.
So I do what life does when it is finished. I dissolve, and return to the world.