Early this morning I was visited by a bogeyman. I heard him in the living room - I heard him come stalking down the hall - I heard him crunching through the mess of papers on my bedroom floor - I heard him make deep, irritable growly noises like nothing I had ever heard before - and I knew, I just knew, that if I pulled my head out from under my covers, I would see him on the floor below my bed, see his glowing red eyes afloat in a mass of darkness - and he would know I was there - and then - no, I don't even want to think about and then.

I had no other option but to stay all the way under the blankets, to try to make my breathing quieter, and go into the accepted method of getting rid of bogeymen (that being, keep your eyes closed and your head under the blankets and try your best to convince yourself that he couldn't possibly exist, and when you no longer believe he has to go away.) It worked. Eventually.

When I woke up for the final time this morning, I could have sworn that the clothes hanging on my closet door had a pale, dead face and were watching me...

I've never been bothered with monsters under the bed before, or anything like that (except for the days when occasionally the sweet-gum tree by my window would get restless and come walking, but that was only that one autumn before it settled down.) I wonder what attracted that one last night. I wonder if I can remember never to do that again. Yesterday in church I started to say the Abracadabra diminishing chant, but was interrupted before I got to the end of the spell ... I'm tempted to say something about psychic energy leaking out of the unbound ends, or attracting demons by saying their names lightly, or tiger repellant and the day it stops working ... but it's noon and broad daylight, and I don't really believe in any of that stuff. Really.

Where's my blanket?