Short Story: Monsters and Mahogany Walls

There used to be monsters under my bed, but now they’re all around me. Their particles fill the dense air I breathe, and I know that they are here. I can sense them crawling out from the walls and occupying my room. Only, it’s not my room at all. It’s theirs.

They used to quiver in my presence, retreating back to their quarters when I drew near. Shards of light threw them into repentance, scorching their bodies and consuming their control and leaving them shriveled up and rotten. They would cower in fear and stay under my bed, the only place that light didn’t dare touch. But, now, light has evaded my room. It has abandoned me and left me in this abyss where I can no longer rely on it to chase away the monsters under my bed. And, now, on the darkest of nights, they’re not afraid anymore.

Inky black floods my vision and coats my room in its absorptive shade, swallowing any ounce of color. The space feels distant, yet my bed has never felt so limited. I feel confined, and hear Mummy’s voice in my head as if she is telling me to face my demons. “Whenever the beasts tickle at your toes or breathe against your neck, you don’t back down. A fire needs fuel before it can grow to take down forests and castles and dragons. Just like how little boys who are scared of monsters under their beds need bravery, Max. Bravery is the only thing that can make the monsters go away.” But she was wrong, because light can also make the monsters flee. Here, in my room that doesn’t feel like my room, on a night where even the moon refuses to gleam through the ebony carpet of atmosphere, I can either be brave or wait for light.

I run my hand along my mattress, reaching out for my stuffed lion that never left my side, and realize that it has tonight. My breaths quicken, and the air grows heavier with pure heat and dust, and I try to muster up any courage that might exist in my core, and think about Mummy and my lion.

One time, when I was in the first grade, the monsters weren’t actually monsters because they had taken a different form during the daytime. During the daytime, monsters can be anything. In this situation, they were Jack Garrett and his friends. I was playing with Fluffy, my lion, and flying down the slide with him at recess, when Jack and his posse stole him from me. I tried to remember what Mummy had told me, about the monsters and being brave, I really did. But all I could think about was that these monsters weren’t scared of the light, and what would happen to me then? I might never have gotten Fluffy back if it hadn’t been for Father, who is braver than I will ever be and ever comprehend. I learned something, too. I learned that everybody has their own monsters, the type that don’t live under the bed.

The sudden smell of something fresh, something rich, pulls me from my delirium and settles over me. My joints feel stiff, turned to stone, almost, and I lie there wondering what has happened to my not-so-room-like room. In my bedroom, I have safari-themed pillowcases and sheets to match the mural on my wall. My stuffed animals are lined up according to the food chain, and my carpet is coarse under my feet. I have a lamp that illuminates the photograph of Mummy and me on my first trip to the zoo, right in front of the picture of Father before he had to go fight against the evil Not-Sees who hurt everyone who wears the yellow stars, as Mr. Baldwin from across the street says. Mummy says, though, that Father is protecting us. I think the Not-Sees are just jealous that they don’t get the yellow stars.

Father is brave because he’s out there battling the type of monsters that don’t live under the bed. I wish I could be like him one day, but each step is still going somewhere. For now, I will make it through the obsidian hours when the monsters come out and light surrenders just to be a little braver in the morning. When the first prism of color slices through the charcoal curtain, I will run to Mummy and Fluffy and hold the portrait of Father close to my chest and tell them all that I had courage and I can be a jungle explorer after all.

I used to think that Mummy didn’t have any monsters. If Father already had the bad guys from overseas and I had Jack Garret and the bullies at school, then what could she be afraid of? I thought about this long and hard for years, until it finally dawned upon me when I fell very ill one day last spring. She hauled me from doctor to doctor and slept beside me at night even though I didn’t ask her to. And, when she didn’t know I had awoken and thought she was all alone, I sometimes saw her cry into the telephone as she begged and pleaded for answers. My sickness was her monster, consuming her from the inside out, eating away at her soul as she poured all her light, all her bravery, into me. Before I went to sleep last night, Mummy held my hand as I held Fluffy’s, whispering that she loved me.

Now, in the cold and the dark, I whisper that I love her. I’m sorry that I can’t be braver for her, when my monsters are nothing compared to Father’s. I’m sorry that I read too much and my legs are too skinny and my glasses are too thick. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be the son Father always wished for so he’d rather be an ocean away fighting the Not-Sees than staying at home with me. But, mostly, I’m sorry that Mummy loves me for who I am even though I know I’m not the ideal boy. But, if I make it through the night, maybe I still can be, someday at least.

The silky velvet underneath me is unlike my bed. The air is seeping out through the crevices, even though my room is enclosed. The walls smell of mahogany and are too close and keep giving me splinters. The ceiling has fallen, although perhaps I’ve just grown. I’ve broken out in a cold sweat, and a chill overtakes me and moistens the space. Then, I repeat the names of jungle explorers just like Mummy told me to do whenever I got really scared. Heinrich Barth, Samuel Baker, Arthur Henry Neumann. The subtle sifting of sand or dirt or dry rain collides with the ceiling. Joseph Thompson, Henry Morton Stanley, David Livingstone. I think about Mummy, as if she is the antidote to the monsters that are everywhere. John Kirk, Frederick John Jackson, Hugh Clapperton. I feel as though I’m sinking, slipping away from my world, from Fluffy, from Father, as oxygen makes its final departure. Richard Francis Burton, Frederick Lugard. All of the sudden, an intense wave of sleep washes over me, trying to drag me down deeper. From Mummy. From the monsters. Dixon Denham, Roberto Ivens. Through the darkness, I can see prairies and jungles and I’m riding Fluffy into the undergrowth. Frederick Russel Burnham. Mummy waves goodbye, and I can make out the faint noise of her stifled sobs, as though they’re right above me. Oskar Lenz. I made it through the night. I defeated the monsters. I was brave. And, just like that, I slip away gently while riding that thought all the way. I was brave.