The Fear of Minding Monsters
Monsters have a deep rooted tradition within horror as harbingers of unspeakable terror. Feasting upon the very darkness that fuels the anxiety of unknowns, they are the perfect embodiment of the writer’s fear—presenting themselves as the elusive “unmentionables” set on taking over the mind.
/ Article by Shalani Devi
I have never understood what separates monsters from humans.
I, who have made a home where I see fit—in darkened closets with second-hand claustrophobia. Can I become human if I wear my skin like a neatly pressed suit and shed it off when it becomes too much to bear? In the absence of light and warm blood, all that I own is a hollow cavity where my hunger sleeps. Occasionally it tosses and turns, and I feel the familiar cravings slither up the back of my throat before simmering at the tip of my tongue. I find it strange that humans must find specific times to eat, and even stranger that I am unwilling to prey upon those who are unwilling. I have always found desire riveting only if you can watch someone else suffer for it.
Or in my case, watch someone miserably try (and fail) to start a flame with a lighter.
Come now, that should be enough. It would be a real pity if you actually burned my house down, seeing as I have just re-decorated.
I wonder which Internet rabbit hole you’ve fallen into to figure out my hiding spot. There’s no need to act surprised, I understand your predicament perfectly. What I do not understand is why you feel the need to bring that tacky little thing with you. What is it about light that you humans find so comforting? Did you chant a prayer too before knocking on my door? Perhaps if I lean forward, there will be a circle of salt at your feet, or I will find that you have been surreptitiously rubbing a clove of garlic in your pocket this entire time?
I assure you these bygone superstitions are useless against me. I am as real as the demon sitting on your chest at night, playing with your hair as he coaxes you back into another nightmare. I think it is about time you start getting used to the shadows, no?
Especially since you’ve come all this way to offer yourself up as a sacrifice.
[I was feeling nostalgic recently, and decided to root around my inbox for the first email I ever sent to Sing Lit Station. I was immediately appalled at the sheer amount of run-on sentences. Scanning the email, I was reminded of the burning anxiety that had bloomed angrily underneath my chest. I was fresh-faced from another internship, and I was hungry for more. I wanted to remain hopeful, but I didn’t want to be disappointed. I couldn’t run away or hide from the looming threat of rejection. Just another “Thank you for reaching out to us, but we’re sorry there’s no SPACE for you ” rejection to add to the crumbling pile . So imagine my surprise when they not only offered me an interview, but soon afterwards offered me the job. It was the beginning of a new year, and I saw this as an opportunity to rise up from last year’s train wreck. It felt nice to be recognised. I decided I was happy and that made me untouchable—as if I was perpetually floating, weightless from the clouds crowding inside my head.]
Of course, it is only natural to be afraid of what you do not know.
You do not need to be afraid of me, though. We are not so different, you and I. In anticipation of your arrival, I have tidied up the house and even prepared refreshments. I would love to show myself and ease your fears, but you are already trembling magnificently. Here, will my hand suffice? If you ignore the creeping black veins and my insect companions, this skin looks exactly like yours, right?
I cannot imagine how it feels to have your feet rooted to the ground for that long. That kind of heaviness is like a slow death. Squeezing the column of skin slowly bulging like fruit, until all that’s left is a gasp and smothered flesh.
There is no need to cry. After all, you have come all this way to prostrate yourself in front of me and seek relief—relief which I can provide, for a price.
As has been made abundantly clear, I am not God. Even if I was, I would definitely not be a charitable one. I am a starving monstrosity shoved into your closet of folktales and nightmares. The cloaked figure lurking in the periphery of every cautionary campfire tale. Everything has a price and every favour has to be returned. What is on the surface is simply too slippery and I am not in the mood to break my teeth crunching bones. What I am craving for is something in the sweet spot, soft and malleable. A strong pulse beneath tissue paper ribs. The gurgling of wine, the bursting of pipes...
Pardon my bad manners. This is too exciting for me, having something so desirable within grasping distance.
[Everything did not immediately click into place the moment I joined. It took a while to get acclimated to everything and find a steady rhythm. I stumbled and fell, like a goblin who’s suddenly been told to walk the bridge he had always been content to live under. But I simply dusted myself off and didn’t allow myself to worry too much about these blunders. They were small blunders anyway, like not responding to an email fast enough or not checking an agreement closely before sending it out. Rectifiable mistakes, mistakes that wouldn’t set fire to all the trees in the forest and upset an entire ecosystem. There wasn’t even enough time to think about them, so I didn’t. But for every fumble, the anxiety in my chest would only spread its wings and burn brighter. At times, it vaguely felt like I was having indigestion. The anxiety took its own sweet time tormenting my guts. I was very clearly not fine, despite what I was telling people around me. The smart thing to do would be to ask for help. Which was why I DIDN’T do it, because apparently the thought of asking for help scared me more than my mother. So I ignored whatever I was feeling, and instead focused on developing a routine for the work I was doing. Eventually, I became comfortable enough that work started becoming second nature to me. Now, I was not only able to keep myself steady on the bridge, but I was a happy goblin who could march on the spot while whistling a merry tune. I was safe. Then I was offered something shiny and glittery—an opportunity to help out in a larger scale social media campaign. The only catch? I had to cross the bridge to get it.]
I trust you understand what I want. The closet is, of course, more traditional, but really the entire world is your playground. You can cause trouble however you want and never get caught. You will answer to nobody. Nothing and nobody will ever touch you. You will unlearn your submission to fear, for it will begin serving you. Imagine the infinity that lies above, the heights you’ll soar.
How extraordinary it would be to hold in my hand. To be assured of life in both its firmness and delicacy. A heart in exchange for a weightless sentencing of solitary confinement. The human who wished to trade places with a monster.
Take my hunger, and I will set you free.
I believe we have a deal, then? There will be no pain, no fuss, and no second thoughts. It will be over before you can blink. All I need you to do now is relax. Perhaps it would be easier if you fell asleep. I will even be willing to tell you a bedtime story, since you have now become my most valued customer.
Close your eyes, and let yourself go.
“So the story goes that there once was a child who could not sleep because he had terrible nightmares. The child was afraid of what he couldn’t see—of the darkness lurking underneath his bed or behind the bathroom door, left slightly ajar. His parents sang him to sleep and left night lights around the room, but they did nothing to prevent the agonising screams from tearing the child apart, like a banshee clamouring to escape. Desperate, they prayed to the Heavens for a solution. The Gods above, taking pity on the child, came down to Earth one night. They knelt next to the thrashing body swaddled in blankets and waited. Seconds before the child awoke, the Gods reached into the depths of his chest and pulled out his fears, a gurgling orb of hissing smoke. The child screamed once, then fell back onto the bed with a soft thud, his heavy eyelids fluttering in deep sleep. Bursting into the room, his parents were greeted with the astonishing sight of their sleeping child and the angry phantasmic force bouncing vigorously upon ethereal fingertips. The Gods locked the demonic entity in the child’s closet, and warned that this entity should be returned to the child when he comes of age. The child never had another nightmare after that.”
[Being given an opportunity to prove oneself should feel exciting, but my anxiety only got worse. “The bigger the opportunity, the greater the screw-up,” it cackled, brandishing its newly acquired fangs and talon-like fingernails. Yes, they could talk and now had fangs AND claws, but I was committed to my tactic of ignorance. Acknowledging my fears would be like exposing my Achilles heel. Vulnerability was a shortcoming, making me a lacking individual unworthy of such an opportunity. And I wanted to be worthy, more than anything. I wanted to show these monsters living rent-free in my body that I wasn’t like them, that I was stronger than them. So I stuck to what I knew best. I kept my head down and worked myself into my familiar routine. For a while, that was enough. Everything was fine, and then it was not. See, the problem with a routine (and especially one that you’ve been doing for a while), is that you start doing things on auto-pilot. This worked for simple logistical tasks, where much of the planning and coordination had already been done. This DID NOT work for time sensitive, stress inducing, and constantly evolving social media campaigns involving people who have worked closely with Sing Lit Station. Amidst the rigorous posting schedule, we decided that the submission deadlines should be staggered to ensure that everybody had an equal amount of time to submit their content for the posts. This sounds like a reasonable enough action plan to execute. In theory, it wasn’t even the most challenging thing I had to do. However, back then I was more focused on getting things done as quickly as possible. In my fiendish frenzy, I erroneously gave the people who were supposed to submit their content in the later weeks of the month the same deadline that I gave the people whose content was due in the earlier weeks. This was not the plan. This was not meant to happen. My clumsy actions reflected badly on my team’s coordination and the campaign’s planning process. It snowballed so badly that one of my team members had to step in to clean up my mess. It was admittedly the worst moment of my entire time working there, and it exaggerated my feelings of failure and ineptitude. The monsters started clawing at my throat and for the first time, I truly believed that I was a screw-up.]
“The child began living a carefree life, and his parents soon forgot about their promise to the Gods. The child had nothing holding him back, and so he began to float. The feeling of existing above ground was so exhilarating that he never wanted to come down. However, the sky—no matter how expansive—will never be a match for the monster’s gaze. It was impossible to deny the existence of the closet, for it always lurks just outside one’s periphery. The more he tried to forget about the monster, the more he felt a heaviness stampeding his entire body. Monsters are unstable creatures, living like empty vessels and constantly starving. Knowing this, the child tried to make peace with the monster by offering it morsels of bodies. First a toe, then a thumb, then hair ripped out from the crown and later flaps of skin just shy of hitting bone. Every meal kept the monster’s prying eyes away. Its appetite flourished, and soon enough, the monster could only be appeased for a short while before it began banging on the door, hungrier than ever. Stronger than ever, the monster began visiting the child’s dreams and robbing him of sleep. The child, with sunken eyes and placid flesh like hay stuffed into a scarecrow, threw open the closet doors. Against a dancing lighter flame, he saw for the first time how grotesque the monster had grown. A patchwork of open skin not unlike a horrific sunset, setting upon a horizon lined with a network of tubes crudely stuck together with glistening glue The most impressive thing was the large open space in the middle that throbbed while everything around it stood still. The child, who had nothing more to give, pleaded with the monster to stay in the closet forever. The monster felt a twinge of pity bubbling in the open cavity of its flesh, and was suddenly made aware of how hollow it felt. The monster asked for the child’s heart. In its place, the monster filled his empty ribs with such great lightness that he soared higher than he had ever before—”
[“I knew you wouldn’t be able to do it. You weren’t good enough in the first place. You’re only bringing the entire team down. Look at how gracious they were in giving you this opportunity and THIS is how you repay them? You should just quit while you’re ahead—”]
He is me and I am you. You, me, him—we are the absence of shadows and the pulling of legs from the safety of beds.
Ah, you woke up earlier than expected. That is alright, just go back to sleep. I will be done in a moment. I just need to reach in and take—
Wait, what are you doing? Okay, enough playing around, put that thing away. Did I not warn you to never play with fire? No, seriously, stop. STOP, STOP, YOU’RE GOING TO—
[Forward-thinking may be my weakness, but I have never known myself to run away. Other than the fact that the physical act of running repulses me., I simply feel uncomfortable leaving things unfinished. I’m stubborn enough to want to see things through. Also, it wasn’t fair to up and leave the moment things start getting difficult, especially when I’m lucky enough to be able to work with people who wholeheartedly support me. It was time to confront my mistakes, and that meant listening to the monster instead of trying to squash it. I was so afraid of making mistakes that I blatantly ignored all the warning signs. The monsters were feeding off of my cowardice, growing more and more powerful the more I ran away. Monsters are everywhere, living in and amongst us. The only way to beat them is to LIVE with them, instead of constantly fighting AGAINST them for dominance. I developed a “new” work routine—one that involved coming up with strategies and solutions that were adaptive to the current situation that calls for them. I am not as consumed by the fear of making mistakes anymore, but that lingering fear of never being “good” still resides at the bottom of my stomach. You’ll be happy to know that my anxiety no longer has fangs and claws, and now simply causes me mild stomach discomfort from time to time. If monsters and humans are two sides of the same coin, then how does one determine if they, as someone who exists in purgatory, are “good enough”? I would argue that there is no such thing as being good “enough”. There are no rules for how “great” you need to be or how high you need to float—so long as you learn how to make friends with the monsters who dance inside of you.]