The Not-Monster

It wasn’t just how quiet it was. No, it was never that. It wasn’t even what was said. We’re the bait to the monster that waits. Secret like.

And we knew all along what our purpose was. To draw it out. Make it scream and shout. Though I never knew what I was supposed to expect. Everyone was on a need-to-know basis. Including me. And probably it.

Wowza.

Run away. Run away. Run away, my mind hummed even though I had been invited to this secret little group she was a part of. Edna might have agreed that I didn't belong, though it was hard to tell. She’d sit there with that grin on her face, you know, daring me to say something, anything, while the cat has her tongue. And I have what little smarts exist, shared between the two of us.

She’s so checked out. Though that look she gave made everything seem normal. Which was decidedly not what we were gathered for.

When did normal die? I think while I wait for the festivities to begin. Was it when everything had to be edgy? Or was the edge only a fill-in for the vacuum, the not-monster. If one exists.

Edna gives me this look as if she does not approve. I can see it in her eyes. Too much thinking, questioning. I was supposed to say something light-hearted. An inside joke, maybe about the presenter’s clothes or their makeup. Something to pass the time for the overly long introduction.

So I poke her. Gentle like. And she takes such offence. She doesn’t look at me for like forever. She starts looking at Gilbert. Or Bert for short. Or Burp, as I call him, when that mean streak in me has a say.

The lights in the room started to fade. “It’s starting!” Gilbert says. “Get ready!”

I’m startled to realize I’m gripping my chair. I look down. Are those white knuckles I see? And my sign, the one I hand-painted last night, is sprawled on the floor. How did it get there without my noticing?

I grab the sign, worried that something is wrong with it. Did I let the paint dry long enough? Is it stapled upside down to the prickly softwood one by two that Delia used to hit me over the head? That happened when she was handing these sticks out to everyone. All in fun, mind you.

It made me wish I could use the staple gun everyone was fighting over to exact a little revenge. But that would be an unacceptable escalation. So I laughed even though my head hurt. Then Delia was off to the next guy, as if nothing had happened.

I stare at it. Ugh. I’ll get a sliver for sure. Must remember to handle the sign gently. Which soon proves to be impossible.

I pick it up. Then I look around. Last chance for this place to be a library. All cozy and quiet. The mirage of ordinary peacefulness fades as Burp unfurls his megaphone.

“I can’t hear,” I think I said. But who’s to know? I frantically stare at our group of protestors. Am I the only one holding my ears like they are fine china, in danger of falling? Which is, of course, exactly what my sign did. Fall to the floor.

I didn’t pick it up. The exit signs, you know, those fire doors, gleamed like faint bobbing lifeboats in the gloom. I wondered how many people might be in my way.

But Edna was having none of that. She grabbed my hand. Burp was still speaking, and the torment in my ears never let up. Somehow, I still heard her.

“We’ll have that meeting they denied us right now at their presentation! What did you expect would happen?” she shouted.

It seemed like a reasonable question. What did I expect? Was she holding my hand? Could that be what I wanted?

I guessed so. We both sat down.

Burp kept going for some time. I had never heard him speak so much before. And the passion and anger were convincing enough.

But that seemed to have little effect on the presenters. They were motioning for security and trying to speak over the megaphone, but even with their microphone and the library's sound system, they were having trouble being understood.

Or so I thought. The megaphone was so loud that it was hard to gauge the effect we were having on the people present.

Edna kept scanning the room, hardly paying any attention to what was being said, which I thought was odd. “Watch!” she snarled. “They’re coming!”

I could see the campus police gathering near the exits. They were trying to judge how many of us there were. Only Burp was standing. But I knew there were a lot more of us than that.

Edna smiled as only two police officers approached us. “They have no idea what they are dealing with!” she chortled.

When the police came near, I noticed that everyone was looking at Edna. She waited until one of the officers reached for the megaphone.

“Now!” yelled Edna.

We all stood up and brandished our signs to the extent that anyone could in the limited space between our seats. And the police fell back to the aisle. There were about fifty of us. The officers were soon surrounded.

Whereupon the presenters called everything off. Just like that. They even said that “they would consult with the community more. That they had no idea there was so much heated debate.”

“As if!” Edna snorted as she shared an aside with Gilbert.

Funny how that went. I stopped calling Gilbert Burp, and Edna told me her real name. Which felt like I was becoming a part of something.

“So what’s your nom de guerre going to be, hotshot?” she asked over coffee not long after.

“Norm?” I queried, as if I needed her approval. I fiddled with the ashtray. Then I pecked at some leftover food.

“Wha-at?” I asked when the silence between us became too hard to bear.

Which got her laughing in such a charming way. Honestly.