There’s A Thing in the Corner

There’s a thing in the corner.

You can see it in the dark by the door. The wind moves the curtains and the moonlight streaks across it.
There’s a thing in the corner.

There’s a thing, a shapeless blob with a face like a baby. Stubby arms that don’t seem long enough to reach anything, yet it’s trying.

There’s a thing in the corner.

Blocking the door, which you now regret sleeping with closed. A thing with yellowing teeth that are mismatched and too big in a mouth that looks like melting wax. A thing with yellowing teeth that are sharp in places like a predator.

There’s a thing in the corner.

Too big and too small all at once. Powering a sick feeling in you. A churning deep in your stomach. Revulsion and guilt because this thing, this terrifying thing is vulnerable and yet it isn’t. There’s a conflict in you, a need to care for it. A need to run from it.

Something in your gut tells you it is dangerous in its grotesqueness.

The thing in the corner with its jaundice eyes, too small but bulging from a protrusion that must be a skull. The thing is strange and alien. All the right colours and shapes for a human, just in all the wrong places.
There’s a thing in the corner and it reaches its stubby fingers out for you. Into the moonlight.

There’s a thing in the corner and it whines as your knuckles whiten clutching the blanket so tight it hurts. It’s a pitiful noise that pulls at the guilt in your core.

There’s a thing in the corner.

Moonlight from shifted curtains reveals it and revulsion rushes forward, chased quickly by guilt as the thing whines.

There’s a thing in the corner.

A terrible vulnerable thing.

There can’t be though.

This must be a dream, a nightmare. You tell yourself it can’t be real and if this is a dream or even a nightmare you can wake up.

There’s a thing in the corner and it whines again.

You pull the duvet up over your head like a child. Count to ten. Say a rhyme. Ground yourself.
It’s gone.

When you lower the duvet from your face it’s gone. The wrong thing in the corner. The thing in the corner with its bulging eyes, yellowing teeth and tiny eyes. The thing in the corner a fleshly blog with stubby arms and a strange skull.

The fan blows the curtain and moonlight flashes across the empty space revealing nothing but clothes and shoes. The door is clear.

You breathe.

A nightmare. Nothing more.

You hesitate still as you place feet on the floor. You’ll sleep with the door open after all. The cool wood of your floor pulls the tension from your body. It drip, drip, drips away as you make it to the door, open it, and return to bed without incident.

You leave the window open. You won’t be cowed by anxieties, by nightmares, by your own mind. You won’t close the window to satisfy a racing heart.

It was a nightmare. Nothing more.

You face the spot it lingered defiantly, allow your thoughts to drift to nicer things and pull the duvet up to your shoulders.

There’s a thing on the ceiling.