Spider

There's a giant spider that lives under my bed. She protects me from monsters. All except for one. She can't protect me from the monster in the brown glass bottles. It's poisonous, it would kill her, and then she wouldn't be able to protect me from any of the other monsters either.
The monster in the brown glass bottles takes over Daddy. Not always, just sometimes.

Sometimes he only opens a few, and it doesn't get him. But when he opens a lot, sometimes he comes in my room. I can tell it's the monster because it smells different from my Daddy.

Sometimes it yells at me, and makes me cry. Sometimes it even hits me. But it's better than the other thing it does. When it does the other thing, it tells me not to cry, even though I want to. It's even worse, and if it does the other thing, Daddy won't play with me for a while. He won't even look at me while I'm looking at him, but sometimes I see he's watching me. I think he's mad at me. He's mad at me for letting the monster do that to me.

But he doesn't understand. I can't stop it, and if I try, it's worse.

The monster comes more when Daddy stops going to work. Daddy opens so many of the brown bottles. Why doesn't he realize that's where the monster comes from? Sometimes, when it comes and it's not nighttime, I can hide. If it finds me, it's worse, but I can't help trying to hide anyway.

I ask Mommy why she doesn't get rid of the brown glass bottles. She says that if she does, the monster will come back on its own, and it will be angrier. I don't want that, and she doesn't either. I hear the monster yelling at her too, sometimes. Sometimes, the next day, when it's gone, I find her crying. I only cry when it's there, so it must be even worse to her. I wonder if it does the other thing to her, too, but I don't want to ask.

Tonight, the monster is yelling at her, but it's different, because this time, she yells back. I hear it coming in the hallway and I get really scared. I hide under my bed, with the spider, even though I know I shouldn't. It finds me, and it yells and hits me. Then, it decides to do the other thing.

It's never both happened in one night, so when it says to be quiet, I can't obey. I try, but I can't stop crying. It yells to shut up, and it hits me again, but I cry harder. When it hits me again, my night-light fades into the rest of the dark room.

When I wake up, everything is different. Everything is white, and very bright. I'm in a bed, but it's not mine. There are people everywhere. None of the women who wear white are my Mommy, and none of the men who wear blue are my Daddy. There's a TV, which they let me watch a lot.

My Mommy never lets me watch much TV, but I do anyway here. They sometimes take me to a room with lots of toys, crayons, and computers, with a lot of other kids in it. The bigger kids always stay by the computers. But they're all sick. My Daddy never lets me play with kids that are sick, because I'll catch something, so I don't play with them.

They make me eat gross food, but there's always dessert, and it's always really yummy. Pie and ice cream and pudding, things that Mommy never let me eat often. I could always get Daddy to give me some, though.

It's not bad here, but I want to go home. I keep asking when I go home. It takes forever, but they start to tell me I can leave soon. I want to see Mommy, and I want to tell Daddy I'm sorry for letting the monster do that to me.

But the day they tell me I can leave, it's not my Mommy and Daddy who come to get me. It's my Mommy's sister. She tells me that I can't see my Daddy for a while, but Mommy will come see me soon. My Aunt takes me to her house instead of mine.

Mommy never told me she lived with the other woman there. I don't know why. She must have given me her bed, because I get my own, and there's only two. I ask my Aunt about it, and she laughs. The woman is nice, but I'm shy around her.

When my Mommy comes, there's a man with her. He's wearing a suit and a name tag. He says I'm going to stay with my Aunt and the woman for a while. Mommy tells me the other woman is my Aunt too. I ask her if she's Daddy's sister, because I know Mommy only has one sister, but Mommy says it isn't like that. Nobody tells me what it is like, though.


There's no brown glass bottles here.

But there's no giant spider under the bed, either.