Close the Door
So I can have a little privacy, please!
But what happens when the door is closed? How many monsters are creeping up and hiding in the dark, just waiting for you to open the door and come back out, vulnerable and night blind?
As a kid in the country, the toilets that sank into the pits of doom (and boy, could you smell that devil down there) were the monsters; they also hid the monsters, and they were the most fearful moment of the night terrors – the ‘I gotta go to the toilet!’squeal at oh-dark-hundred.
Yeah, the midnight (or later) need to pee. And who has to take the littlies out the back, down the longest, darkest, roughest path? Yeah. So, out we go, hands gripped so tight the blood won’t flow – you don’t let go, ‘cos if the monsters grab you . . . and drag you off . . . and eat you . . . and spit out the bones . . . and no one comes looking for you . . . until the sun comes out . . . and you’re dead (or worse).
And in a storm? Rain is nothing, just a bit wet (and that doesn’t happen too often in places like that town), but the lightning, the thunder – and of course, the long-drop dunny is conveniently placed under the tallest tree in the vicinity (keeps it cool in summer, kid) – and the near-misses people speak of. And the ones that didn’t miss, and the people who don’t speak of their close call, but go white in the face, or turn away, or hyperventilate.
Lightning kills, thunder deafens, storms are the calling card for fear.
For the littlies who can’t hold on, who fear the monsters of the toilet more than the shame of a stinky wet sheet, who cry each night the thunder rolls into town to greet their sleepless minds and distended bladders – this is hell.
Of course, it’s always an adult who says ‘Don’t be silly – there’s nothing out there!’ They’ve been blinded and deafened. They no longer see or hear the truth of the shadows, they don’t know. Their brains have been ‘blocked’ to the real. Zombies.
If they opened their eyes, if they listened hard enough, turned their thoughts away from[image error] ‘big problems’ they’d see it – they’d see them – and they’d . . .
Don’t know. What is it that changes grown-ups into mindless, memory-less, fearless (stupid) things – WHO WANT TO CLOSE THE DOOR! and leave the smaller, weaker, more vulnerable person outside, in the dark, alone . . . with . . .
BTW – new title due out in Feb – don’t know what it will be yet, so stay tuned.
