Monstrilio

by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

I believed that flower was my son reincarnated. One believes the stupidest things in grief. I spoke to the flower and called it my son. And then I laughed because how ridiculous—how cruel, really—it would have been if my son was reincarnated as something so ephemeral, frail, and beautiful. I killed that first bloom with one swoop of my hand. Dead again, my son could become something else: the shell of a tortoise, strong and ancient, or a hideous fanged creature deep in the sea where he’d see wonders even he could’ve never imagined.

We didn’t so much exist as much as we haunted, and with no one else to haunt, we haunted each other.

He asked me to cry with him, but his sadness was his and I couldn’t steal it.

Damn

I wanted my grief, but instead I was left with a horrible nothingness, and I got really scared. But then I realized fear was a thing I could feel, and I clung to it. I was afraid of my loneliness. I was afraid I would never have anyone to love again. I blamed you for it. For leaving. I was angry. Furious. And then I had two emotions. Fear and anger. The anger helped me wake up in the mornings and eat and clean the house and wash myself. The anger even distracted me long enough that I would forget my loneliness,

It came easily to me, this compartmentalizing. So easy I sometimes worried that I was a type of psychopath as yet undiscovered, and then I remembered that if I were a true psychopath, I wouldn’t fear being one.

I became her demon. I needed to break her before she broke me.

My mother thought I was a monster and didn’t love me because of it. This thing, an actual fucking monster, was loved.

Sometimes I felt as if all the care he bestowed upon me was simply to keep himself from discovering what I hid.

what they needed wasn’t acknowledgment or empathy or closure; it was escape.

I had wanted someone to drown with together, but now that I was seeing this Magos, I realized she would’ve pulled me down faster.

M stared ahead. His face showed no sadness or anger or fear, but it wasn’t neutral either. It twitched as if unable to decide which gesture was most appropriate, which gesture could possibly communicate whatever mess of emotions were bubbling up as he watched his mother mourn the child she had been grooming him to replace.

Damn. This is just sad.

“Best dad,” he would say, and he’d tell our dear ones how they only knew one part of me, how he was lucky to know all of me.

I can be very human, though for a while I refused to. I wouldn’t even go out. The world was scary. Worse. I was scary in it. In a body I had no clue how to handle. More parts than I knew what to do with.

When people don’t understand you, you can say anything you want. Fuck off, for instance.

I like saying, It’s fine. It’s a lie that seems smaller.

I pretend my time as Monstrilio is hazy. Muffled sounds and blurred colors. I say I remember warmth. But I don’t say I miss my fur. I don’t say I’m hungry because my hunger is what makes everyone scared. They are happy to believe I forgot how they maimed me.

Thank you for being kind. I didn’t expect it.

I wade through the shadows of our living room, hoping to find monsters. Chat with them. Laugh. But there are no monsters in these shadows. Only me.