Bards and Sages Quarterly (July 2018)

My Monster and Me

By Kyla Chapek

ONE MORNING WHEN I was nine years old I sat on my bed with Monster clutched to my chest. I had cried myself to sleep the night before, scared my older brother, Danny, would come back to my room. When he had come in the night before and laid down with me I thought he was going to tell me a story. When he asked me to have sex with him all I could do was cry. Then he said he didn’t think he wanted to have sex with me after all and had left.

We can do this, Mary, said my fiercest stuffed animal and protector, Monster. We just need to make it down the hallway and to the stairs. Then it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to Mom and Dad’s room. You need to tell them what happened last night.

I shook my head and squeezed Monster tighter. The rest of my vast army of stuffed creatures formed a protective ring around me on my bed. I was hesitant to cross the line and even peek out my door to see if the coast was clear.

You can do this, Monster said. All of us say so. You’re our favorite. You always have been.

I looked down at Monster. The stuffed animal was a hand-me-down from one of my older siblings like most of my toys. I didn’t mind hand-me-downs. With so many older siblings I had quite the collection. Monster didn’t look very cute and cuddly with his big red and yellow eyes, big plastic green nose dotted with warts, and pointed white teeth stained with green plaque. Monster’s scary look was part of his appeal.

When I inherited him from my older brother Bryan, I had convinced myself Monster was the good twin brother of the king of all monsters and bad things. If I propped him up on the edge of my bed at night, any monsters who came for me would think it was their king, get scared and run away. I had always talked to my stuffed animals, and Monster was no exception. It had been a surprise, though, when Monster started talking back to me. None of my other toys did that. It was our special secret.

I squeezed Monster’s fuzzy blue and purple body tighter and chewed on one of his stuffed horns. Was it really worth saying anything about last night? Danny was just visiting from Portland for a little while. If I said anything, people would get upset and start arguing. The fragile peace of our household would be destroyed, and it would be my fault again. My brother Avery said I needed to learn to keep my mouth shut sometimes. Was this one of those times?

Danny’s head was funny. That was why he was part of special counseling and work programs up in Portland. Mom said sometimes how Danny was supposed to be her Doctor or Lawyer, but then too many bad drugs burnt up his brain. She forgave him for a lot. Would she forgive him for this? Should I just pretend it hadn’t happened, put on a smile, and go downstairs for breakfast and cartoons?  

The day before, I had been stupid and had thrown Monster at my stepsister Dee Dee’s head when we were fighting. Monster had lain forgotten on her side of the room until after Danny left and I retrieved him and put him back on his post, so I could fall asleep. I would make sure he was in place every night and I would lock the door too. Mom and Dad had been at bowling last night. They would be home the rest of the nights Danny was here. Dee Dee had stayed up late last night with the parents gone. I wouldn’t be alone in the room for the rest of the time Danny was visiting.

You need to tell someone, Mary, Monster insisted. If you don’t want to tell Mom and Dad, tell Bryan or Jessica. They’ll protect you. Danny will visit again. Mom and Dad will put him in charge. What if you forget to lock the door someday? You shouldn’t have to live afraid of him.

I thought about this and chewed on Monster’s horn some more. Jessica stayed in Eugene this weekend. She hates living in the Boonies. I don’t know where Bryan is. He could be out on a run.

Mom and Dad are sure to be in bed this early on a Saturday. You just need to make it downstairs. Mom always said to tell her if something like this happens. They’ll make Danny leave and won’t let him come back. You can do it. You’re the fastest girl in your class.

I swallowed down the nervous feeling in my stomach and dared to venture past my protective circle of stuffed animals and slide off my bed. Picturing Danny waiting for me just outside, I approached the door painted a pale green like the rest of the room.

I can’t breathe, Monster hissed.

My skinny arms shook, I squeezed Monster so hard. I loosened my grip. Sorry. What if he’s just outside?

Check under the door.

I set Monster aside long enough to get down on the floor and spy through the crack beneath the door. Of what I could see of the hallway, I was in the clear. I retrieved Monster and after a deep breath, I opened my door just a crack.

The girls’ room I shared with Dee Dee was at one end of the hallway. The door to the bathroom was to my right. Bryan’s room, the alcove separated from the rest of the hallway by a curtain, was to my left. The alcove used to be Jessica’s room before she moved to Eugene just a couple of months ago. Then the next oldest in the house, Bryan, moved out of the boys’ room at the opposite end of the hallway and into the alcove. Danny was staying in the boys’ room with Avery and my stepbrother Mathew. The door leading to the stairs was just left of the boys’ room.

Make a break for it, Monster whispered.

I gazed at the curtained-off alcove and the darkened bathroom. My stomach churned and I was warm and prickly all over. What if Danny was hiding in the bathroom or Bryan’s room, ready to grab me when I ran by? Then I eyed the white door of the boys’ room. I pictured Danny waiting on the other side ready to pop out and snatch me up like a coin on one of those robotic piggy banks.

If that happens, yell, kick, bite and scream. Someone will hear you. I’ll be there to protect you too. I’ll call on all my brother’s demon hordes to come to our aide.

You can do that? I looked down at Monster.

Don’t know. Never tried. I would try for you, though, Mary. I would do anything for you. It doesn’t matter anyway, because you’re too fast for him to catch you. I’ll count to three, then we run like the wind. Okay?

I swallowed hard. My heart beat in my head, making my ears hurt. Okay.

One, two...

I bolted before Monster said three. The alcove and bathroom blurred by me, but it felt like I was running in sand like in a bad dream. I skidded to halt in front of the door to the stairs. A chill ran up my spine being so close to the boys’ room. I ripped open the door and headed down the carpeted steps. The stairs lacked a guardrail and I jumped off six steps from the bottom. Pretty high even for me. I stumbled on my landing but Monster broke my fall on the hard tile floor.

Without a word to my older siblings sitting in the living room watching Saturday morning cartoons, I scrambled to my feet and snatched Monster up by his big green nose. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Danny’s flannel draped over the couch. I didn’t wait to see if Danny sat with the other kids. I just ran into the hallway under the stairs to my parents’ room.

What’s with her? I heard Dee Dee’s voice from the living room as I pounded on the parents’ door.

Mom opened the door, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but I didn’t give her the chance.

Something bad happened I need to tell you, super important!

Mom pulled me into her room and sat me up on the bed to talk. My stepdad must have already been up because he was nowhere to be seen. I squeezed Monster to my chest as I talked to Mom. Hot tears leaked out of my eyes. Her face went from confused to surprised and then to broken.

Mom sat next to me on the bed and draped an arm over me. Did he touch you? Her voice cracked.

I shook my head. He left after I started to cry. I was scared to leave and tell the others and I fell asleep before you got home.

Mom squeezed me to her chest like I did Monster. She cried a lot, said sorry, that this wasn’t my fault and that she would take care of this. After a while, she called in my brother Bryan to sit with me and protect me from Danny and went and had a long talk with my stepdad.

I didn’t know if Mom had told Bryan what happened with Danny, so I just sat next to him silently and chewed on Monster’s horn.

You did it, Mary! I knew you could. You’ll be safe now.

I smiled down at Monster and picked at his pointed teeth.

After talking with my stepdad, Mom had Bryan take me on a bike ride to the park a half mile down the highway from our house. I strapped Monster to my back just in case Danny came after us. We played by the river while Mom and Dad had a long talk with Danny and Dad took him to the bus station in Eugene.

Danny wasn’t allowed to visit for three years after that. When Mom did let him visit again, she made sure my door was locked every night and never left me alone with him. I wasn’t scared though. Not because of my mother’s precautions, but because Monster stood vigil over me every night and whispered encouragement and advice whenever I needed it. Along with the hunting knife, my stepdad gave me I kept stashed under my pillow.

Snow Metal

By Eugen Bacon

TORVILL WATCHES THE girls. They outnumber the boys, aloof lads, most of them tradies at the weapons plant. Now the boys, hoods with a bit of income, play key-stroke games on small electrode beamers, fiddle with music, act like they have a bit of class. The girls, similar in hip-huggers, in defiance of the norm, are mostly signal sorters—these wear honey and black. Torvill understands their working rights, their privileges, and independence, their resolve to build Goth hours in graveyard shifts for a lunar paycheck instead of settling as breeders like the rest of their lot.

He also understands the sorting process, what goes on in the pillared towers of The Enclave, an impregnable place, airtight security. In this messaging tower that ‘listens’ to the galaxies, colossal pillars steeple into antennas that pick anion and plutonic noise, any wave leaking off space. It is here that intergalactic battles are lost or won, military or diplomatic secrets intercepted too many vantages. Intel-sensors snap signals into a looping continuum of capsules in a belt system, an intricate system that compresses the waves, sorts them on type, date, time and origin. Officers in encoding vectors decrypt the signals, assign weight quotient in terms of intelligence, emboss inferred threat into intel-chips for the Senate.

Not all girls are graveyarders: scarlet and black indicate rank. These are the encoders: reserved. Unlike the sorters—who chat non-stop to each other, at each other, who gesture continually to demonstrate their talk—encoders hold a dignified air.

The Gate station vibrates. A distant drone grows loud, louder into the platform until the vessel Shuttronix rolls to a halt. Shuffle, step. Shuffle,