Those Monsters
20110427 @ Wednesday, April 27, 2011
When I was a kid, to overcome my fear of the dark, I would countdown from 30 starting the moment I turned out the lights. This involved making a blind dash across a room lit only by cracked-door hallway-light leakage and whatever might have been illuminating out in the front yard; a six sided Victorian-style glass lamp perhaps, or cars turning slowly into my neighborhood pushing light-bands of ghosts at odd speeds and angles over my plaid wallpaper and posters of hair bands Poison, Motley Crüe, and Cindy Crawford.
I would leap onto the bed to prevent any monster that may live under it from attacking my ankles. Once in the bed with plaid sheets to match the wallpaper, I would grab my stuffed duck and we would quickly bury ourselves in the cool fabric. As I neared zero in the countdown I would steady my breathing and prepare to be invisible. I would do this by commanding the universe to alter my molecular structure like some kind of X-Man. With two simple words I would say, “Flat. Blend.” And voila I would be reduced to the height of that which I was resting on, in this case, the brown plaid sheets, and like a chameleon my skin and clothing would camouflage itself with the pattern; almost like a color-changing lizard version of Flat Stanley. I would repeat this exercise every night. I had to. Always without missing a beat, as soon as I reached Zero, a crime-boss-man of some kind would enter my room and search the area looking to capture any living organism he found in the space. If I opened my eyes, my 2-dimensional blend-o-being-ness-spell would be broken and I’d be taken away. I couldn’t let that happen. I had a very alive stuffed duck to protect.
Eventually, the hit-man would look the other way and I’d be able to slide out of the sheets to catch some fresh air, with eyes closed of course.
-The illustrations were from Benroy. He's perasaning. so yah.
