alone child children close up
Photo by Matheus Bertelli on Pexels.com

A short story, inspired by a chat I had recently with a friend’s little girl!

The day I met a Monster

Monsters are real. As real as you and I. They don’t just exist in fairy tales, or in the silly children’s books that mum reads to my baby sister. Mum should know better than to fill her head with goblins and fairies or tell her that monsters only come with bright yellow eyes, and are kind really. They’re not.

Monsters are much cleverer than that. They are not huge lumpy things, like in the cartoons or in my favorite film, Monsters Inc. Those monsters are tame by comparison.

Monsters live around us, in the nooks and crannies of our old house, lying dormant underneath the creaking old floorboards. They are in the park that we go to, in broad sunshine. They stand under the shade of the oak tree outside our shops, the acorns bouncing on their heads. But they don’t move, they wait.

Grown-ups chose not to see them. They hurry past the oak trees, look away when we’re on the swings, talk to each other when the monsters walk past. I know this, have figured it out a long time ago.

They just want a moment to sneak into the sunshine.

Grown-ups won’t give them an inch.

So they stand in the shadows, creep around the park, the house, the sidewalk.

But I know they’re there.

I’ve seen them with my own two eyes.

And I’m going to tell you my story. It’s about

The day I met a Monster.

Suzanne Bowditch, 2019

#shortstory #fiction #monsters #thedayimetamonster #writer #creative