The Monster in the Cellar

Frank and Viola never talked about the monster in their cellar—that just wasn’t how it was done. Certainly they knew about him. They had, in fact, put him there themselves one fine September day when the perfect autumn air left him feeling as sleepy and content as monsters ever got, and they could trick him into descending below.

Once he was there, he was trapped, and the people above never spoke of him again.

It wasn’t easy to live in a house with a monster in the cellar. Sometimes there were horrible groanings from below. Viola would say, “My! These old houses settle terribly, don’t they?”

Sometimes Frank thought wistfully about the amount of space down there. “One of these days, I’m going to turn the cellar into a wood shop,” he said. “I’ve got some great ideas for furniture I’d like to build.” But, of course, he never did. He couldn’t open the cellar without letting the monster out. It was easier to forget about building furniture.

Though they never said so out loud, both Frank and Viola had a vague hope the monster would starve to death down there. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. He found lots of tasty monster-things to eat in their cellar, and over time he grew stronger instead of weaker. Frank hesitantly suggested once that they should go downstairs and try to kill the beast before the situation got worse, but Viola gave him a look of such hatred—and burned his dinner, besides—that he never mentioned it again.

The monster groaned louder over the years, so Frank and Viola started shouting at each other instead of talking. The monster found a weak spot in their floorboards where he could stab a claw upward and try to gouge them. Frank and Viola learned to avoid that spot. They learned to avoid lots of spots.

One day, Viola’s friend Marge came over for coffee. In the middle of a conversation about their husbands and their plans for their upcoming retirements, the monster gave a particularly loud groan. Viola didn’t seem to hear it, but Marge put her coffee cup down and said, “Viola—when are you going to do something about that monster in your cellar?”

Viola gasped. “Monster? In my cellar? How dare you!”

“I used to have one. George and I finally killed it, and we’re much happier now.”

Viola stood up. She was so angry her hands shook. She snatched Marge’s coffee cup away and dumped it out in the sink. “Get out of my house. You’re no friend of mine.”

Once Marge was gone, Viola took her coffee cup outside and smashed it against the cellar door. She screamed, “Shut up! Shut up and leave me alone!”

She screamed at the memory of Marge, of course. There was certainly nothing else for her to scream at.

Viola cleaned up the shattered pottery. She went back inside and turned the television on—loud. She calmed down and regained control of herself.

A monster in her cellar. The very idea. Ridiculous. 

Of Orphaned Boots and Other Things

It was his night to have the kids, and Tim was determined to make this one count. He’d been losing them lately. Once a week wasn’t enough time to feel connected.

So he took them to the beach. It seemed perfect—fun, yet unstructured enough to give them time to talk while playing. The kids always wanted to go to a movie, and that hadn’t been helping.

Unfortunately, work ran late, and Tim didn’t have time to go home and change before he picked them up. When he told them the plan, his daughter sneered.

“You’re going to the beach in jeans and work boots? Nice.”

She was 13, which was probably part of the problem.

His son—ten, and easier—liked the idea, so Tim forged ahead. When they got to the water’s edge, he stripped off his boots and socks and rolled his pants up most of the way to his knees.

His daughter rolled her eyes. “Embarrassing.”

But once they started splashing around, they seemed to have fun. The kids got their shorts and t-shirts soaked, and while Tim had a fleeting thought of how mad his ex would be about that, he didn’t worry about it too much. They were enjoying their time together and actually doing it together for once. That was the important thing.

He did worry, though, when it came time to leave, and he discovered one of his boots was missing. He dragged the kids up and down the beach looking, but it was gone.

Shit, he thought, but didn’t say aloud with the kids there. Those were expensive boots.

“Why would someone steal one boot?” his daughter asked.

“Maybe one of those big birds took it,” his son said. “To make a nest.”

Tim said, “It could have washed out into the water.” They spent some time staring out at the waves, but if the boot was there, it had already sunk or floated too far away to be seen.

“Well, come on,” Tim said. “It’s getting late.” He had a spare pair of boots he could wear to work tomorrow. Not as good, but they’d do. He scooped up his socks but left the orphan boot lying on the sand.

“Aren’t you going to take that one?” his daughter asked.

“No point. Not much I can do with one boot.”

As the kids got in the truck, Tim thought about the next family to come to this stretch of beach. Why would someone leave one boot? the kids would ask.

Because things never work out the way you expect, Tim thought, and he drove his kids back to their mother’s house. 

Crazy

Her children thought she was crazy. Her friends—well, acquaintances would be more accurate—thought she was crazy, too. But her children were grown with lives of their own, and the fact that she had second thoughts about referring to her friends by that name told her she wasn’t required to take their opinions under consideration.

Her husband’s opinion would have mattered, but his death two months ago had sparked this crazy venture, anyway.

So Martha bought a VW van, chose not to renew her lease, put her things in storage and took off to see the country.

The idea had been simmering beneath the surface for years. She’d married young, had children young and had missed out on the adventures young people were supposed to have. She’d talked with her husband about getting an RV someday, and he liked that idea, but she knew, somehow, that wasn’t really what she wanted. RVs and RV parks were accepted retirement adventures. She wanted something even crazier.

When she set out in her van, she had no itinerary, no reservations and no plan. She would start by heading west—that was all the planning she’d done. When she was hungry, she’d eat. When she was tired, she’d sleep. When she saw something interesting, she’d explore, whether that took two hours or two weeks.

“And what happens if your van breaks down?” her daughter asked. “What happens if you can’t find a safe place to park? Are you crazy, Mom?”

Yes, she supposed maybe she was. And she liked it. 

Happy Mother's Day

Once upon a time there was a little green caterpillar. She was a perfectly nice caterpillar, but she couldn’t help feeling she didn’t want to be a caterpillar forever. She was tired of spending all day crawling along the ground, taking forever to get anywhere. She wanted more.

Thankfully, the little green caterpillar had a mother. Her mother told her there was a reason she wanted more—that she was made for more. She showed her daughter exactly what to do to grow into the creation she was meant to be.

The little green caterpillar followed her mother’s instructions. She prepared carefully, then wrapped herself bravely in a cocoon. And just as her mother had predicted, the little green caterpillar emerged as a new creature. She was now a beautiful yellow butterfly, and she soared everywhere she wanted to go.

Happy Mother’s Day, and thank you to my mom, who taught me to spread my wings and fly.

Mirror Image

Carol was fascinated by reflections. It started with a childhood trip through a mirror maze when the circus came to town. She’d mocked the thing when she was outside—a real baby attraction for sure—but it became a different story once she was in there.

She got separated from her mom and brother. She could see them—could see two and three of them. Each time she ran forward, though, she just smacked into glass. She came close to real panic before her mom finally put a hand on her shoulder and said, “It’s tougher than it looks, isn’t it?”

Ever since then, she’d been unable to pass by a mirror without stopping to stare into it. Storefront windows became whole other worlds when the sun was at the right angle. Lakes were her favorite, though. Lakes not only made reflections, they made reflections she could dive into.

When Carol was underwater, she thought about the reflection on the surface above her and felt she’d actually stepped through the looking glass. She’d broken into the world on the other side of the mirror maze, the one where her mother and brother had hidden from her so long ago. Sometimes she made a game of seeing how long she could hold her breath. She liked to stay down long enough to be sure the water over her had settled and stilled to show reflections again.

There weren’t many opportunities for the breath-holding game now that Carol was an adult, but she still paid attention to the reflections. There was a bridge she drove over every day on her way to work. She always watched her car’s reflection race along the water beside her, and she wondered what it was like in that car, the one hanging under the bridge rather than over it, the one filled with icy lake water.

It might have been an accident. It might not have been. She might have been paying too much attention to the reflection and too little to the road, or she might have had a momentary lapse of sanity. Perhaps the reflection itself had cast a spell over her. In the crazy few seconds between the time Carol’s car slammed into the guardrail and the time she realized she was going over, Carol was as surprised as if another driver had crashed into her. Except no driver had. She couldn’t blame this on anyone but herself—or her mirror self.

The car filled with water. Carol fought to get out, but even as she fought, another part of her mind wondered what it would be like once she couldn’t hold her breath anymore and she truly became her mirror self. What would it be like to exist only as an image, something to be seen but not touched, something only half real?

That’s what ghosts are, she thought. They’re reflections. I wonder what the mirror is?

She stopped fighting to get out. She realized she couldn’t wait to step through.