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Teaser Snippet

"But Nonna...mostri... sotto il mio letto..."

"Oh no, you rest now my little one," A dry whisper ragged with many years filled the silence of the dim room. "There are no monsters under your bed, child. This I know for as fact." Settling upon the edge of the bed, the elderly woman smiled, a reassuring smile that was accented by the flicker and dance of the sole oil lamp warming the room with its warm glow.

"But Nonna, how can you be sure?" a boy of no more than seven looked upon the woman with a mixture of worry and hope, "Jean says that he did see a monster before, Nonna...” Patchwork quilting rose up before the boys face, wide eyes waiting for reassurance.

"Jean has, has he?" Her expression creased before returning into that comforting smile. Settling her hand upon the child's knee, a thin eyebrow raised slightly, "The very same Jean Pierre whom also tells tales of selling his sister for bit of licorice?"

"Yes, Nonna"

"I see..."

"But, he really did..."

"I am sure that if he did see a monster, that poor monster best run for his very life, facing that child," Her tone rose sharply as she spoke, shaking the child's knee beneath the quilt. Pausing, she withdrew her chin, giving her grandson a very serious look from the corner of her eye, "There is much licorice to be had if one pays for it with a monster!"

"NONNA!" The boy whined out, even more concerned now than before. She smiled her way back to his trust, patting his knee to comfort him.

"You get some sleep, my dear one. Do not ever worry of silly monsters under your bed. There have been no monsters here in a very long time. They have been all chased away." Slowly leaning down, the elder woman placed a dry kiss upon the boy's forehead.

"Sì Nonna," Sinking down into the stuffing of his bed he blinked slowly, gazing out beyond the slight distortion of the windows glass, to the night sky, a vermillion cast hosting the stars mingled amongst the rising pillars smoke from the foundries. The lamp light danced about as his grandmother slowly departed, stretching shadows long across the walls. The boy began to lose his focus on the stars and clouds, sleep beginning to take its blissful hold. One and then two, his blinks lasted longer and longer until at last they stopped and he drifted off.

Beyond the safety of his room, where the reassurance that monsters did not exist, the Parisian rooftops and streets played host to the contrary. Monsters did play amongst the chimneys and stacks. They lingered in the soot and shadows. They gave errant whispers to influence the minds of men, only serving to empower them even more. But even nightmare beasts feared. They feared what came with tales and stories that were handed down amongst generations. Stories of how they did not exist. Stories that manifested hope against all they wished for. Stories of Vandals.

Image credit: Marilyn Hageman

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“Not All Monsters Are Bad?”

“Not all monsters are bad.” How fantastic of a concept is that? When you really dig into it and think about what it suggests, it says a lot about our concept of monsters. Even more-so if you apply it to writing, but I’ll muse on that in a bit. I would rather look at the concept of what a monster is, in as base of a way as I can.

Classically a monster is someone or something that has a bad connotation to it. Some dark, evil, terrifying entity that portends the end of good times. They exist in the forests at night, beneath children’s beds, and lurk just out of sight on the boundary where light refuses to go any further. They are the prime suspects in most cautionary folk tales as personified metaphors of what will be the end of unsavory behaviors or traits. One would be wise not to let the monsters get them. But what if that was all wrong? What if monster were not simply harbingers of doom?

Take a look at popular culture’s “King of Monsters”, Toho Studios Godzilla. Throughout Godzilla’s long run of movies and media, the big lizard has held many stations in the spectrum of “monster”. Godzilla doesn’t reside in either spectrum of Good or Evil, but hovers somewhere in between. Sure, during bouts of Rock’em Sock’em Kaijus, Tokyo and surrounding lands get devastated, loss of life is evident which follows our idea of “monster” but there is something else that lingers. We root for this monster! Proof? Several years ago my daughter, who was 9 at the time, and I sat down to watch the 2014 American version of Godzilla. Without spoiling anything for those who haven’t seen it, As the film was reaching its finale there was a point where Big Green wasn’t doing so well. At this point my daughter broke out into legitimate tears. The kind of tears that, as a parent, immediately trigger the instinctual reaction to console. She was upset about what appeared to her to be the death of a giant monster.

This concept is much larger than I initially thought when I sat down to write this, so for now I think I will leave this as it is, and think more on the concept. Perhaps I can even ask some of my own monsters about how they feel about it.

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First drop being a requisite quoto.(portmanteau ftw) With that done, I will probably revisit the idea here in a musing later on, because it is a good one!