In the Corners

“So your big black cloud will come / And press you to the ground / The air will leave your chest / Your faith and where you're found / You're finally standing still / And your fingers all go numb / Get higher on your hill / So your big black cloud will come / Your big black cloud will come” - Phil Elvrum, “Mt. Eerie”

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As a child, I was the Monster Hunter of the family. At least that’s how I thought of myself, anyway. To the rest of the family, in retrospect, I have a sneaking suspicion I was merely seen as the bait.

I have two older brothers – two brothers substantially older than I am, in fact – who were always scared ball-less of the dark. I’ve never learned what it was that had transpired before my time that had left them in permanent mortal fear for their safety every time the light went away (perhaps it was the infamous and obliquely-hinted-at Sasquatch Incident of 1978).  But whatever it was, it had charred an indelible impression on the pair’s cajones.

My family – the five of us, that is – lived in an old creaky house when I was young, and Dad was usually out of town while my mother spent the Eighties on nightly explorations of the combined effects of alcohol and Vicodin, so the three of us kids spent most evenings tiptoeing ‘round the house trying not to disturb her.

I remember being awakened in the night by two preteen forms huddled over my bed, wide-eyed and whispering, as the elder siblings squeaked out bogus excuses why I should be the one to scope out the stairs and the kitchen for Mom or predators and clear the way for the two of them to then raid the refrigerator for goodies.

For I was the Designated Keeper of the Penlight, you see, and it was I who tromped stoically down the groaning stairs, staring the darkness in the face as nameless things roiled within thick shadows and almost audibly plotted my destruction. And the two shivering figures just behind me? Those were my big brothers praying that the claws, fangs, and assorted ectoplasmic pseudopods, when they all finally moved in for the kill, would sweep me up first while the brothers made their getaway.

The truth is, I was probably more convinced than they were that sinister somethings really bristled in corner shadows where the penlight could not reach, blind and bloodied somethings that the world had tried to abort but went on bristling still.

No one ever suggested just turning on the damn light. We’d sooner take our chances with the unknown somethings than risk waking the demon passed out on the couch that we did know.

Many scraped knees and rusted jungle gyms and broken hearts later, my longtime boyfriend lay waiting to die in a Houston hospital. Towards the end, I would spend the night in a chair next to his bed that seemed specially designed to guarantee area chiropractors steady work well into the future. My boyfriend would wake in the night, knowing I was somewhere in the room, and he would begin speaking into the darkness.

He’d say, “I can’t believe that I lived through all of those amazing things, all those promising things, and it was only leading to this. It’s like a fucking punch line to a bad joke.”

He’d say, “How long will you wait before you throw out my stuff from your closet and move someone else’s stuff in?”

He’d say, “Would you mind turning on the light? I can’t see into the corners. It feels like there’s something in there waiting for me.”

Then last night, my neighbor, Sean, sat with me in the living room of my new place, which was dark but for that omnipresent flickering blue glow that defines the modern age. He lay back on his elbows, snapping a flashlight on and off, on and off. “Why do you have flashlights in every room of your house? What do you need so many for?” he asked, innocently enough.

“They’re not for me,” I replied sleepily as he cast a ray of light into a corner. “Don’t harass the things in the corners, though, Sean.”

I said, “They’re not harassing you, are they?”

I said, “They’re just watching what goes on, is all.”

You pick up on a few things, over the years, being the Designated Keeper of the Penlight. The darkness in the corners is just future days that aren’t ready to form yet. Just you wait and see. You and me, someday we’ll go Monster Hunting together. ...