Under the Bed

Prompt:
You're in charge of assigning every child on Earth a monster under their bed.
One child, in particular, has caused every monster assigned to him/her to quit.
You decide to assign yourself.
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THUD.
The desk reverberates as the boss' voice explodes into the air.
"Kreblop! What is the meaning of this file?"
The folder is immense.
Flipping it open shows an astounding volume of work all for the same little girl.
Twenty-five.
Twenty-five reassignment requests: for a seven-year-old.
The pile is absurd.
The rule is that the 25th assignment for a child requires a managerial assignment to investigate so, number twenty-six had to be a Supervisor or above.
Glaring down at me are the nine glowing eyes of the boss. Floating there, suspended, at the end his invisible eyestalks.
"WELL?"
"I don't know, sir. The rule is that the 25th request triggers elevation to my level. It looks like the one we received this morning is the 25th. I'll look into it today."
"Yes, you will. I want a Supervisor on this TONIGHT! This rule was instated 350 years ago when a 15-year-old reached TWENTY requests. This rule was never intended to ACTUALLY BE USED! Take care of it!" The eyes blinked out in sequence until they were gone.
I wait an unbearably long time. The clock says it was a whole minute, but an eternity passed within it.
I exhale. "Fuck. Who can I assign to go find out what this is all about?"
All nine eyes suddenly apparate in front of me "Kreblop! TONIGHT. I mean it." They then disappear again. Flipping through the folder I see that the first monster assigned lasted two years. Each successive one lasted a shorter and short period of time until the most recent was a mere week from the one before.
"Aw, fuck it. I haven't been in the field in a century. I'll go."
#
The transition through the shadow is harder and colder than I remember.
"Hello, new monster" the tiny little voice trickles down from above, the double-l slightly warped into a w sound. Despite the cute tone and inflection, there is an immediate air of sinister in the cut to the words. "I've been waiting for you" she clips as the head of a doll hits the floor in front of my face, it's eyeless face staring at me with empty sockets gored out of it where the painted-on eyes used to be. She giggles and her face appears, upside-down, staring directly at me in the dark of the under-bed "can you last longer than the last one?" She drags the moment of eye contact out uncomfortably long before retreating above the bed, singing "la la la la la la la. Monster under the bed is dead. Dead monster under the bed. La la la la la la la la. Good night. Dollie. Good night pony. Good night unicorn. Good night monster."
She goes to sleep. There is no fear to harvest here. It is in the darkness waiting for dawn to come that I investigate the room. The floor is unusual for a bedroom - it's not a carpet. It's not hardwood. It's linoleum and there is a drain in the corner. I try to open the door and see what lies beyond and I cannot, it is locked from the outside. Everything else in the room looks picture-perfect for a little girl's room.
#
As the second night arrives I slide, again, into the under-bed of Lisa's room. "Hello, new monster, you came back I see." She knew the instant I arrived that I was here. She knew, despite the silence of the transition. "Yes, monster, I know you're here. I always know. Monsters can't hide from ME" her face appears at the edge of the bed as she says "ME."  "I have a present for you" she proclaims as she retreats from the bed. "Here it is!" she squees as a red blob splorts onto the floor in front of me. She bounces across the bed to announce "here's the rest!" as there are several other moist impact noises. I turn around to see five additional red blobs and a giant, fluffy tail. She bounces across the bed again. "Here's the last part!" She says, excitedly, and she hurls the remainder of a squirrel belt at me.
"Gonna come back tomorrow? I'll have a NEW present for you." She bounces on the bed again and drifts off to sleep.
#
I slide into Lisa's room and am welcomed, again, by "hello, new monster!" from above. This time, though, it's followed by "Here's the new present for you! I got it from Bobby down the street!"
A cat, with a shoelace tightly tied around its neck, drops to the floor in front of my face.
Her face appears next to the cat. "It's a KITTY! Or, it WAS a kitty. I like it better this way. Don't you?" Her gaze shifts from the cat to me "I think I will like YOU better this way, too.... or, maybe, like my squirrel friend from yesterday." A steak knife drops from the bed top to clatter on the floor next to me. Her feet appear as she drops to the floor. She gets down on her knees and picks up the knife. "Let's see what's IN kitty friend now!" She squeals in delight as she opens the dead cat up and scatters the parts across the floor in front of me. I can do nothing but watch. When she's done she looks back at me "what's inside you, monster?"

Perception and Being Wronged

A bit less than 13 months ago I ended a relationship. I killed it. I put it down.

It was the right thing to do. The relationship had been in a stable place of undeadness for nearly five years after a rapid courtship and more than four years of decline from the initial relationship energy into a stable, cohabitative friendship.

About the time that it crossed over into being undead my (now) ex approached me about making out relationship open. There is a lot more to the story than that simple statement and, maybe one day, I will write it all out, too (or, maybe, I have... I don't really go back and review my old posts). This post is not about all of that.

This post is about today.

Facebook is an interesting place. There are meshes and interconnecting networks of people who carry differing levels of loyalty to their connected contacts. Facebook is filled with secrets and it is filled with spies. Some of the spies do their espionage to generate drama just as some of the secrets are kept for the same reason... but, others... others do their spy work because they feel they are doing the right thing.

Today I was asked if the right my ex was selling was the engagement ring.

I, of course, new nothing about it as I unfollowed my ex years before we actually broke up (for reasons that are better-suited to the other post that may or may not exist). I popped over to her feed (as we are still Facebook friends) and did not see any post about it. Obviously, it was a secret being kept from me.

This secret did not bother me terribly much. My spy friend sent me a screen shot and I verified that it was the engagement ring to appease my spy friend's curiosity. This generated a mild annoyance.

What created the anger that I am currently experiencing was when a second friend inquired about the related post. The post where it was implied that I valued our relationship very little based on how little I spent on the ring initially. This lit a fury inside me for several reasons.

FIRST - I bought the ring for her despite our financial situation being very tight and difficult. Our situation was difficult because she had quit work and gone to school and I was supporting her during this process.

SECOND - I also supported her participating HEAVILY in the SCA. I supported her when she took stops all over the Kingdom that we live in (which included leaving the country) and I supported her when she travelled across the continent to events that were far away. I provided the financial support for her to do this.

THIRD - The ring I bought was aligned with her aesthetic choices. It was not price-gouged as an "engagement" ring because it was not all diamond. It was amethyst because that is what she wanted.

FOURTH - One of her spies gained word that I was planning a proposal and told her because, at that time, she was planning to LEAVE ME (I discovered this later). It ruined the proposal but, when we discussed what I had planned for the proposal later, she accepted the ring anyway (I still did not know she had been planning to LEAVE).

FIFTH - She NEVER wore the fucking thing anyway.

All of this enrages me but it pales in comparison to the main reason I ended the relationship. That reason is that, amidst all of her travels that I paid for, she didn't tell people I even existed. I am re-entering the SCA and I am meeting people she has interacted with for YEARS who have NO IDEA who I am. They don't seem to have any comprehension that my ex HAD SOMEONE AT HOME funding her activities; someone at home who was staying with HER dog so that she could go. Someone at home who was being discarded and abandoned so that she could galavant around the known world and have the fun she wanted.

I am angry not because of the ring. I am angry because the only time anyone heard of me was when she was complaining. I am angry because she was never truly grateful for what I gave her. I am angry because I was used without any sense of remorse.... but, more importantly, I am angry because she is unable to see and acknowledge ANY of it.

I'm angry and there is nothing I can do to fix it. Actions in the past are what they are. Actions in the past cannot be undone.

I'm angry and it's my right to be so.

I'm angry.