when I was five or so,
me and my brother slept in the same room.
we each had a twin bed, at opposite ends.
he told me scary stories,
wanting to impress on me maybe, his fearlessness of having heard them himself.
he had a flashlight, of course
aimed up near his chin,
he’d begin telling me stories of swamp things and snake men,
which didn’t terrify me terribly to be honest.
but one night, he tells me there’s a monster under my bed.
he’d lift up the tiles ever so slowly,
he’d creep his hand around the edge of the mattress tugging at the sheets so he could pull himself up and out of his hiding place.
I would tug back of course,
but he’d continue,
the flashlight pressed right up against the bottom of his jaw.
he scared the shit out of me you know.
in fact, the one time I scared him was when we was getting up in the middle of the night,
and he heard his own bed creak
I was sleeping under it, and I’d arranged my pillows to look like it was me in my bed.
creak
I heard him call for me, chris, chris are you there.
I didn’t move cause I thought maybe he was seeing the monster.
I saw the flashlight turn on..
and the ray’s moved steadily, slowly downward.
I came close to the edge of the bed, staring hard looking for tufts of fur, claws, red eyes, anything.
and then he bent the flashlight down, and waved it under his bed where I was
and I looked around frantically to make sure the monster wasn’t lying silently next to me.
I grabbed the flashlight from him
and I’m sure he freaked,
as did I, so I slid out from under the bed, as quickly as can be
the flashlight resting on my chest shining up onto me.
when we saw each other, we both screamed.
monsters mouths agape in light.
I wish I didn’t have to use that word.