Return of the monsters

As a child, we were always scared of the monsters that our parents warned us about. Those ugly, horrendous and dreadful monsters that usually hide underneath the gloomy, dusty and empty spaces of our bed. They were said to come out when we were alone in the dark, feasting mercilessly on our sorrows, agony, pain and despair in the most gruesome ways. And this was the part that made us scared. They could do anything to us. Anything that we loathed.

We would cry out in the hope that someone would come to our rescue and shoo away monsters. And someone would, a couple of times. In those times, those monsters would stay away. But as time evolved, they continued to return. When the presence of someone means nothing but a faded memory, the monsters came back. But this time, we were not able to recognise them until they had inflicted pain on us.

They wore enticing smiles and dressed fashionably. They sugarcoated words, yet they seemed genuine. Who would have known that a daisy was poison ivy in disguise?

So when the truth was revealed, you broke. They had fooled you into believing that they were gone when they had always been lurking around, waiting for the right time. Their psychotic desire for your agony as a child seemed like it was the only thing that did not change.

You cried and screamed, hoping someone would hear you, but unlike before, no one bothered to come.

All because you are now older.

So you hid the pain. Without knowing that the pain had planted a new disturbing emotion inside, but you did not care. You did not care about the pain. Or the fact that you did not feel anything but hatred and sadness. You did not care about how people talked about your drastic changes. You did not care about whom you should treat nicely since you treated everyone with an equal desire of hatred.

You simply did not care about anything. Because now you have grown. Because now you are not the same old child, pleading with your parents not to close the lights. Because now you are not hiding beneath your blanket as a shield against the monsters. Because now even if they masked their crooked smiles, they could never hide their eyes filled with malice or their calloused fingers with a thin cloth of gentleness.

They could never scare you again. Because now you are one of them.

Â