Summer of the Monsters

by David Sodergren

We are born, we live, and then we die.

The greatest television takes place in the human mind. But he was an author, so of course he said dumb shite like that.

She figured if she started smoking crack cocaine, he’d nod and mumble, “It’s good for teenagers to have hobbies.”

Monsters weren’t real. Everybody knew that.

Trails didn’t end. They took people places, or circled back on themselves. Otherwise, what was the point of them?

Be careful around the woods, Rab had warned her. Best tae avoid them altogether. Yeah, but since when had anyone trusted teenage boys?

Her first day of school, and she had made a friend. Okay, so he was a giant monster who lived in a nest, but who cares? A friend was a friend… and that was all that mattered.

For surely even a little happiness was preferable to none at all?

“No. I’m going to cancel.” “Fine. You have her phone number?” “Fuck. Okay, when she arrives, answer the door and tell her I’m sick. Tell her I’m dead.”

Maybe crying was okay on a first date. But, she supposed, only if earlier in the evening you had killed a monster with a pitchfork to save your daughter. Then — and only then, she decided, as her own eyes filled with tears, and she joined them on the couch — was crying on a first date acceptable.

“But I think you have to keep going, because sometimes you find happiness in the most unexpected places, don’t you?”

These people were worse than the monsters. Worse, because they were human, and should know better.

Life’s unfair. Was it true? Or just what people who’d stopped dreaming told themselves?

Innocent didn’t mean much, these days.

Everyone’s old enough to die, she thought. That’s the great tragedy of life.

For after decades of searching — twenty-seven years, eleven months, and eight days, give or take a day or so — the story of the little girl who befriended a monster had finally found the perfect ending. And her dad would have been so damn proud.