Color spreads across the east. Birds call and fog hugs the
hill outside the window. She tries not to think of the monster in the basement.
He first arrived nearly four years ago at her naïve
invitation. He was broken and she would provide him temporary refuge to heal. Slowly
he grew in his monstrous power, tacitly controlling everything about her.
He would rise, roaring and ranting, if she inadvertently
disturbed his sleep at any time of day. (We all know that monsters can’t keep
regular human hours.) While she tried to tip toe through her home it sounded to
him like the footfalls of stampeding elephants.
Slowly she curtailed her social engagements, no longer
hosting her friends for movie night or prayer. Neighbors and friends called to
enquire about her safety and well-being, but she would say she was fine.
He would eat her food, but would not deign to dine with her.
Perhaps he couldn’t bear the light of her kitchen and her concern.
After a while, things began to disappear. A gadget. A gold
coin. Her medication. Her late husband’s wedding ring and the 50th
wedding anniversary gift – a diamond ring. Her own wedding ring. And the edges
of her sanity because the monster feigned innocence and intimated she must have
simply misplaced them.
Finally her health disappeared as well, borne away by the
burden of stress and uncertainty. Her heart was broken and she had no choice
left.
Her coffee now cold and the sky grey with threatening rain,
she contemplates how she might evict the monster, her own, her son, from his
basement throne.
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