The Monster in My Room

I was awake. I was sleeping, but now I was awake. Instantaneous, complete, all senses going full bore awake.

The room was just a notch above pitch black. The almost imperceptible light from a new moon filtered through the tattered and rusted screen in the solitary window that stood as a witness above my bed. The moon glow didn't actually illuminate my room, but rather allowed one the ability to sense things were there, rather than actually seeing them.

It was there.

The Monster was back. Somewhere in the deep shadow that was everything beyond the moldering mattress on which I lay, It waited. It was still, and so was I. To move would attract its attention, and with it's attention came Wrath. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it's presence between the toy box that held no toys, and the dresser with the drawers frozen in various degrees of open. It was there, watching, waiting.

A cold breath of air came through the window and rolled across my bare back, causing goose bumps to rise, and a tiny, involuntary shiver to run through my thin body.

It moved closer.

A wave of warm air, thick with malevolence washed back across my body. I still could not see what I knew was there, but I knew it was closer. I lay still, only my eyes darting back and forth, and my heart pounding in my chest.

creeeek

It was even closer now. Straining my eyes I could almost see the Monster. It was on the fringe, the no-mans-land between seen and unseen. Just at the very edge of shadow. I could hear it take in clean air, and exhale air laced with the evil that lived inside of it. I could feel the blackness of its heart weighing on my soul, and the dark piggish eyes boring into my very being.

It was hungry again, and I was it's food. It had already devoured my childhood innocence, and taken any joy that had been in my heart. All my small body had left to offer was pain, and pain was the sweet nectar that the monster enjoyed the most.

It broke the plain between darkness and light.

My eyes clenched shut, if I could not see it, maybe it would not really be there. But my higher brain new the dark truth and it screamed inside my head. It screamed the child's scream of gut wrenching terror. The scream of someone who knew that they were lost, someone who knew that rescue and safety were never going to be part of the living nightmare. It screamed because I was powerless to scream myself.

I could feel it hovering over me, watching, waiting. My lungs began to burn. I dared not take a breath lest the movement of my tiny chest bring the Monster down upon me. My heart pounded in my ears so loudly I feared that the Monster would hear it and take notice of me, and begin to feed.

Had I known about God, and how sometimes if you prayed hard enough he would listen and at least save your soul, I would have been disappointed. With knowledge of God, I would have known that I lived in a place where prayers went unheard, and God certainly never visited. I lived in a land of darkness and shadow, of pain and fear. I lived where the soul dies.

A white hot bolt of pain shot from my shoulder to all other points in my body. The Monster had taken a nibble. I dare not move, or cry out, it would only prompt the Monster to take a bite.

Another nibble.

Then another.

I cried out. I didn't want to, but my body betrayed me, first with a yelp, then with great wracking sobs and unstoppable tears pouring from my eyes. Now the feeding began. I squirmed, dodged, tried to ward off the blows, but as always, I ended up first curled up in a tight little ball, then as my strength to resist waned, my body just allowed itself to be pushed around by each blow. Eventually even the tears stopped flowing. The Monster was sated.

My Mother turned and walked to the door, the floor softly creaking as she went. As she shut the bedroom door behind her, the room brightened enough to see the stained walls with their sagging, moldering wallpaper that defined the perimeter of my world.

I was 4.