The Monster

It’s here. Sorry I couldn’t warn you sooner, I just found out.

The ominous text lit up the dark apartment like a sliver of moonlight, pearly yet dreary. This particular apartment, however, barely saw any moonlight and even less sunlight, as its curtains always remained shut, protesting the existence of a world outside of them.

The girl scrambled to her feet, thanking the universe that, for once, her phone was on. The battery icon at the top of her screen protested that sentiment vehemently, flashing red and threatening to shut down her phone at any moment. But the girl was already far gone, leaving the phone just inches away from its charger, begging to be replenished. As the girl started rummaging through her closet, the phone breathed its final breath with a bzzzt, pathetically announcing its death. She ignored it, knowing that a dead phone would buy her at least some time.

The girl paced through her messy apartment, stepping on small objects and tripping over large ones, looking for specific things. She grabbed every picture filled with smiles, every letter signed with kisses, every sentimental gift, every memory that made her heart flutter, every instrument of pleasure, every book that made her feel alive, every color, especially her favorites, pink and orange, and stuffed them into a bag – a forbidden bag, filled with everything that had ever made her happy.

She knocked on her neighbor’s door, a bit too loudly for 4:00 AM. Her neighbor opened the door, rubbing her eyes, groggy and confused. She was in her pajamas, a rumpled but perfectly matching set. At the sight of the girl, she smiled a tired but knowing smile, and extended her hand out for the bag. The girl handed her the bag.

“You’ve got this,” she said, her hand lingering on the girl’s, “I’m here if you need anything.”

The girl nodded and gave her a polite smile, already knowing she wouldn’t dare impose any further. She had to make it through this by herself.

The neighbor, who had always been somewhat of a psychic, pulled the girl into a hug. The girl stood, arms limp, letting herself be held by the woman next door, practically a stranger, but who was, in this moment, something more. A caregiver. A protector. Nurturing. Loving, even. If she had allowed herself to hug the neighbor back, she would’ve burst into tears.

After the quick but emotional handoff, the girl hurried back to her home. She observed her apartment: seas of dirty clothes, mountains of dishes, whirlwinds of dust – a testament to the girl’s mental state. She suspected that this is what summoned it, along with the now-deceased phone she had refused to acknowledge for weeks. Before she could even think of addressing the mess, the bell rang.

Fuck, the girl thought, anxiety rising like bile in her stomach. Or was it actual bile rising?

She stood in front of her door, her heart beating loudly, her blood pumping in her ears. Maybe if she stayed quiet long enough, it would leave. Through the slit under her door, she saw its shadow pacing impatiently, slicing the hallway light leaking into her dark apartment. She gulped.

Just a little longer, she thought.

But it seemed that her thoughts were everyone’s to hear that night, because the bell rang again. The girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath, just like she learned in yoga before she stopped going, and slowly exhaled all the anxiety in her body. As she breathed back in, the anxiety came back. She resigned herself to her fate, and lifted a shaky hand to open the apartment door.

The Monster stood at her door, taller than the doorframe. Its long and scrawny body was covered in prickly black fur. Its face was wrinkled and twisted in a permanent expression of disgust. Its smile, if you could call it that, was distorted by two long fangs that were the size of the girl’s forearms. From the thin hairs on its scalp emerged two twisting ivory horns, beautiful if not terrifying. The worst part was its eyes. Its eyes seemed to hold all of the sadness in the world, two dark voids of endless despair. The girl struggled to meet its eyes, worried that if she held its gaze for too long, she would shrivel up. She thought of the grape that rolled under her couch and turned into a raisin, its only company dust bunnies and stray socks. She was scared the monster would recognize her own sadness, and eat it, swallow it, leaving her an empty husk, with no more joy or sadness of her own.

The girl’s entire body tensed up at the sight of the Monster, as it always did. The Monster leaned in. The girl bit the inside of her cheek. Then, the Monster lifted two of its many arms, and embraced the girl. A beat. The girl reluctantly hugged it back, its sharp fur prickling her arms. Thankfully, the awkward embrace did not last long.

The Monster squeezed through the doorway and shuffled inside the apartment, its feet-tentacles immediately met a small obstacle made of dirty underwear, an empty bag of chips, and some possibly important paperwork. The Monster stopped, its tentacle-foot retreating to the mass of black fur in what the girl assumed was disgust.

“This is why you need me here,” the Monster spoke its first words, its voice deep and tired. Behind its words, the girl heard: “You brought this upon yourself.”

“Go to bed,” the Monster ordered, and the girl did not argue.

She watched, in awe and in fear, as the Monster did what it did best, clean. Slowly, her exhaustion won over her anxiety, and she drifted into a restless sleep.

When the girl opened her eyes, everything was sparkling clean. Not one speck of dust was visible. All the clothes were organized perfectly in the closet, down to socks and underwear, so much so that the closet looked like a bookshelf. The floor was mopped, the trash was thrown, the dishes done, the laundry washed, the curtains open. However, all of the furniture, including the bed she was sleeping on, was stuck to the ceiling. The entire room was upside down. As the girl realized this, she fell from the bed, crashing onto the hardwood floor.

She looked up and saw the Monster sitting on the upside-down couch, casually enjoying TV. The girl’s anger bubbled up in her stomach.

“How do you expect me to live like this?” The girl cried, but her voice was muffled, as if screaming underwater.

The Monster, however, heard her. It slowly turned its head towards her.

“You will learn to live upside down,” the Monster declared, strict and unmoving, its eyes cold and emotionless, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if gravity wasn’t constantly pulling the girl down, as if it hadn’t since the day she was born, the earth eager to reclaim her body before she even got the chance to live her life.

“But I can’t,” the girl struggled, jumping up to grab a chair. Her hand missed it by a hair.

“Everyone must live upside down,” the Monster said, but the hardwood floor became soft, and the girl’s feet sunk into it like quicksand.

The girl struggled, reaching for charger cords, dangling sheets, furniture edges, anything she could use to hoist herself up and join the Monster, but she kept sinking. Everything kept getting more and more out of reach, until the floor fully swallowed her.

The girl woke up with a start. Her eyes adjusted to the unusual brightness. The furniture was on the floor. She sighed in relief. Of course it was. This story is not a fantasy, after all. Instinctually, she reached inside of her pillowcase and grabbed the ratty grey shirt she hid there. The feel of the soft cotton inside the palm of her hand allowed her to calm down. Keeping the shirt was a risk she was willing to ignore. Then again, what was so joyful about a shirt?

The clean apartment looked gutted, empty, almost surgical, just like in her dream. She got up, feeling more prepared to face the Monster than she was yesterday. Or rather, a few hours ago.

She sat down at the dining table that was cleared for the first time in months.

As with every Monster visit, the day began with a warm meal, followed by a list of tasks.

The monster set a plate in front of the girl, its long dark claws a strong contrast to the white ceramic. The plate was steaming hot. She dug her spoon into it and took a bite. As the food hit her tongue, she was transported back to afterschool meals, to rainy days spent cozying up inside, to laughter and warmth, to home. This was the Monster’s power. The food tasted like childhood, and it was enough to bewitch people into loving them. After months of supermarket sandwiches, the girl felt herself get bewitched.

After the food, the girl went outside. The sun felt good on her face. After walking for a while, she had to take off the jacket that the Monster had washed and ironed for her. It was then that she realized it had been a while since she’d been outside. The leaves were green and the trees blooming with flowers and the sky was free of clouds. The last time she’d truly been outside, it was grey and cloudy and her face was wet with rain and tears. She stopped in her tracks at the memory, and took a deep breath. She carried on.

The Monster’s tasks were diverse. It wanted ingredients and tools, to do what it needed to do. It also required the girl to go and speak with certain people, even visit them and spend time with them, which she abhorred. She did it anyway, as she did not want to anger the Monster. It would make the stay so much harder for her. She just had to keep her head down until it was time.

The girl did not know how long the Monster would be staying. After her tasks, the girl would lay in bed, on her phone. She was eventually able to do more difficult things, like reading, watching movies, or playing games. Sometimes, the girl watched the Monster work around the house. The Monster slithered around, its thousand arms attending every task at once, somehow forever busy in an apartment so small. She almost got used to its presence. Her anxiety faded day by day, and she even found herself enjoying sharing meals with it.

They ate a delicious lunch together. Illuminated by the soft afternoon light, the Monster looked almost… content. Its horns seemed shorter, its fangs rounder, and its face almost relaxed in a smile, a recognizable one. The Monster caught her looking and met her gaze, but the girl flinched at the sight of its terrible eyes, and looked away instinctively. When she looked back, the contentment was gone. The Monster still didn’t look scary, but any sign of possible joy had disappeared from its face. The girl combusted with guilt.

The days passed. The outside air made the girl feel better. So did talking to people. And the sun. Maybe the Monster being here was actually good for her. The girl almost wondered why she was even afraid of it in the first place. She found herself thinking she could exchange her joy for the company. She was so terribly lonely, after all.

The illusion shattered one terrible day, as the girl returned from her tasks. She found the Monster, imposing, majestic, evil, and seething with rage. Its body was so big, sprawling across the corners of the house, covering the walls with its dark and endless limbs. Its usually sad eyes glowered, red with anger. She dropped the bag at the entrance.

Before she dared to ask what made the Monster so angry, she spotted her answer. A bundle of grey cloth, her hidden shirt, so tiny in the Monster’s gigantic paw. So insignificant, yet so violently skewered by the Monster’s claws. She gritted her teeth.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, tentatively.

“Do not take me for a fool,” the Monster’s voice boomed, making the walls shake.

The girl stayed quiet. A drop of sweat slid down the back of her neck. The silence was tense, rhythmed by the Monster’s boar-like breathing.

“I don’t understand,” she attempted again.

The Monster did not like that. It roared a terrible roar, its impact strong enough to pin the girl back to the wall behind her. Its breath was horrendous, as if something had died inside of its mouth, and the girl suspected she might be next.

“It smells like her.” The Monster growled, spitting green and sludgy venom.

Her. A wave of emotions crashed into the girl. Softness and fullness, then goodbyes, hearbtreak, soul ripped to shreds. She wished the earth would actually swallow her this time, but the floor was unforgivably hard against the soles of her feet. She felt panic overtake her body, she could no longer breath, or take her eyes away from the burning gaze of the Monster.

“It’s wrong,” the Monster’s breaths were becoming heavier and heavier, it was frothing at the mouth, “you are a monster.”

The girl flinched and closed her eyes, bracing for the Monster to swallow her whole. Part of her gave up, ready to be swallowed into the Monster’s stomach, to digest in its acid, to become nothing more than nutrients and disappear for eternity.

Then, the unthinkable happened. The girl had always expected the Monster to kill her, to eat her, to punish her for what she was and still is. But instead, the Monster burst into tears. Its spreading limbs withdrew slowly, disappearing into its mass of fur. It hugged itself with four of its arms, its tears big and heavy, drenching the couch and the curtains and the bed and the floor.

The girl took this chance to sneakily retreat into the bathroom, the only place she could be free of the Monster’s presence, at least for a little while. She grabbed the sink, steadying herself, grounding herself with the coldness of the ceramic. She pulled out her phone from her pocket, attempting to unlock it several times before her shaky fingers entered the right fucking password.

I can’t do this anymore, she texted.

You’re almost there. Hang on. The phone read.

When she finally left the bathroom, too empty to fear anything anymore, she found the Monster curled up in the drying puddle of its own tears. It looked small, almost as small as a big dog. For the first time ever, her fear left her. If the worst thing the Monster could do was cry, was it really a monster? For the first time, the girl thought her joy might be worth the Monster’s sadness. For the first time, the girl saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Monster, however, was not one to relieve suffering. The next day, the Monster did something else it did very well, pretending nothing had happened. It subjected the girl to the quiet routine they had gotten into. The tears on the couch had dried, every pillow was back in order. The shirt was nowhere to be found. The girl looked everywhere, under the hidden but watchful gaze of the Monster. The girl decided to get some fresh air.

“Take the trash out with you,” the Monster ordered, and handed the girl the black plastic bag.

The girl instantly knew what was inside. She felt her soul decompose inside of her. She ripped the bag from the Monster’s hand, a bit too roughly, but she didn’t care. She stomped downstairs and stood in front of the dumpster, her angry tears burning her eyes. In a fit of rage, she ripped the bag open, its contents spilling all over the sidewalk. She retrieved the shirt, which was now stained with garlic and tomato sauce and oil and other mysterious substances, and shoved it into her mailbox. The Monster had no key. It would not take this away from her. She looked around, covered her mouth with both of her hands, and screamed.

The girl waited for the days to pass. She woke up, ate the painfully delicious food, accomplished her tasks, and headed back to bed. She no longer enjoyed the sun outside, though the rain provided some comfort, some sensation. It was as if she’d dropped her soul in cement. She no longer felt a thing. The routine was tasteless, and endless. An imposed suffering. On a fateful day, the Monster stood in front of the girl.

“I will be taking my leave,” the Monster said, “escort me out.”

The girl took the Monster to the airport, a smile threatening to appear on her face for the first time in endless days, the relief expanding her lungs.

The girl and the Monster bid each other goodbye with another prickly hug.

The Monster faced the gates and started slithering towards them. As it got further and further away, its image started disintegrating. Its horns retreated into its scalp, its black fur fluttered away. When the Monster turned around, the girl was met with her own face, but with thirty years of life added to it. Its eyes were now brown, identical to the girl’s not in color but in loneliness. Its fur was a sensible puffer coat, its now-normal hands pulling a small carry-on suitcase. The Monster smiled, tears streaking its face, its head lifted up in juvenile pride. Then, it turned around, girl, woman, monster, and faded into the endless gates.

The girl felt her insides squeeze together, and the tears escaped her eyes in cascades.

“Bye, mom,” she croaked, waving to someone who was no longer there, and maybe never really was.