The Monster Under My Bed

"Mom, could you check for monsters under my bed?"

"Mommy, who is that on my bed?"

Ah, nothing like a classic two liner horror story to begin with. As a child, I must say I was rather fortunate to focus my imagination on having a yellow octopus as a friend than to envision demonic entities lurking behind me when the curtains were drawn and lights turned off. Don't laugh, I know you had imaginary friends too, alright?
However, in a bizarre turn of events, I started facing problems sleeping after a few years while my imagination soared to new heights (maybe the excitement was what didn't let me sleep) and thus, with utter disappointment, I realized that I had created a pet monster for myself too.

I'm aware I called it a pet monster, but what else should I call the being who would keep staring at me, standing at the edge of my bed every night? The loyalty was unbelievable, and so was it's presence. I was never the best at making new friends, but I had no idea how to befriend the ones I had made up myself. My approach was always to observe the person from a distance, find out their interests, see if we had anything in common, and then approach them on a whim. I decided to use the same tactic here, and check if it would work on friends from alternate universes.

The 'thing' was approximately the same size as me, but was shape shifting and colour changing. A normal child should have been terrified of whatever this was, but my curiosity simply could not be contained. It would mostly stay in my room, play with my toys, read my story books and occasionally, even watch television with me. I had never said we could share, but apparently, the 'thing' was a little too comfortable, and already considered us friends. Took me some time to realize that this was indeed another way to make friends, and soon enough, I began to warm up a little more to it.

An artist's impression of how my friend looked

However, there was an unavoidable problem. My friend could not speak the languages I could. English, Hindi, Bengali, nothing worked. Whenever I would try to communicate through speaking, it would only look at me with blank, uninterested eyes. A lot of deep sighs and immense frustration were the only outcomes of my attempts. Despite the barrier, I was awestruck by the things it could do. For instance, it was fond of art, and I would often find it sitting with a pen and jotting down little poems with rhyming sequences. All was going well until the day our dynamic changed completely.

On a rainy, gloomy evening, my friend and I were playing with crayons and paints, and we finished our drawing of a fruit basket in a while. I was very happy with the way it had turned out, and told my friend to wait while I showed it to my mother. As I was beaming and making my way towards my mother, I saw a perplexing scenario. My friend was already next to my mother, sitting with our drawing, and my mother was smiling affectionately at it. Bewilderment, confusion and a surge of jealousy coursed through my body as I saw it looked exactly like me, completely human in form. I tried calling my mother, but my voice wouldn't work. I walked up to her, wildly gesturing her to look at me, but to no avail. As the panic began settling in and the jealousy turning into pure rage, I stomped my way to stand in front of a mirror.

If there was a look of fright on my face, I couldn't see it because the mirror didn't reflect anything back except the furniture and decorative items. Hysteria ensued, but only in my mind since nobody else knew what had happened. Suddenly, the room began spinning around violently and I woke up on my bed, dripping with sweat and tears streaming down my face. I looked at my hands, my clothes and rushed to the mirror in my room. The reflection of an aghast child, with sheer fright glistening in their eyes looked back at me. I might have screamed, because very soon, my parents were by my side, soothing me and tucking me back in my bed. I looked around my room, failing to notice the drawing lying on my table.

After my parents had left, I heard a noise under the bed and felt a weight settle next to me. I was petrified, yet I slowly turned around and opened my eyes, only to see 'it' staring back at me. Taking out an empty mirror holder and placing it in front of our faces, it was the day I realized that the monster under my bed was a part of me, and had always been by my side. It is shy, but always present and only needs a little coaxing to come out and play.

What I didn't know is that it goes by the name of 'Inspiration'.