-2006-

Fear is what feeds the MONSTER.

But not every monster hungers.

Some are just lost, and terribly lonely.

The sleeping child always feels the same. The same disorienting sensation that leaves the child lost in a carousel of rotating faces - never once familiar - and each one a fleeting blur that fades into obscurity, leaving behind a profound sense of solitude once the initial agony ebbs away to reveal a bottomless ache. Upon returning home, this cycle of ever-changing faces persists. Solitude spirals into loneliness, becoming nothing more than an intimate companion, weaving through feelings of despair, apprehension, and dread. The persistent unease stemming from continuous medical treatments and procedures, the lingering dread that came with falling asleep only to never wake, and the suffocating weight of melancholy that descends whenever the child gazes into a mirror and fails to recognize the reflection staring back - perpetually feeling fragmented - never once feeling whole. Day after day and night after night, these emotions persist and smother like an inescapable shadow looming over every moment, offering the only semblance of predictability in the child's tumultuous existence, a grim reminder that death will come far sooner than any doctor could speculate.

Fear is a feeling shared between the man and the woman upstairs even as they sleep soundly - their dreams haunted by the inevitable. But fear is not what consumes the child who lays awake in bed, but rather the presence of a monster standing in the closet's doorway, unintentionally disturbing the child's light slumber. The monster speaks softly to the child whose face had been partially concealed by bandages some hours ago. Only the child's right eyes is visible now. Almost translucent, like faded milkweed blossoms that may have once been blue or green.

Every night for a week and two days, the monster visits the child, sharing stories of its travels and bringing gifts for the child to hold onto. With every gift, the child's smile grew brighter. On the night before Halloween, the child asks in a voice too frail to follow the monster into the world beyond the closet door. Although hesitant at first, the monster agrees and carries the child in its arms, promising to return near morning, before the sun can climb through the windows of the house.

Many hours pass before the child returns home, barefoot, dirty, and alone. By now the woman and man are awake and find the child running through the house downstairs, cheerful and whole. But they scream in horror for the child is not theirs. The sound of glass shatters along the floor, bloody shards accompanying a trail of tattered bandages that follow the child from room to room. The man and woman run back upstairs where they hide, and the child runs back into the closet, feet bloody, and cries.

The monster never returns. The boy never dies. And the house is left empty.