By Charis Seeley
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| from The Far Side |
I considered posting something seasonal and celebrating the wonderful
weather we’re having in Iowa. But I wrote a short story instead, so we’re
switching it up a little today. I’m an epic fantasy writer, and when I saw this
image, it got me thinking. How many times have we heard something go bump in
the night, and even as adults, we pull our covers over our head and pray
ourselves to sleep? As a Christian, I know it’s the prayer keeping me safe. But
the comic sparked an idea in me. What if there was a world where a blanket was
all that protected you from the things that creep in the shadows?
-Charis Seeley
Fire Under my Bottom and Bold as a Bull
I know you’ve been told to fear the monsters hiding
under your bed and in your closet. But that’s a lie. I’ll admit they’re
terrible. But your nightmares should be made of the monsters that stalk behind
your curtains.
One week after I had
learned to crawl, Mother took me to get my blanket. I was five months and
thirteen days old. Of course, I don’t really remember that day, but she’s told
the story so many times that I can picture it more vividly than a memory.
We took the steam
train into town, walked seven blocks east, two blocks north, and arrived at
Mole’s Blanket Emporium. It was a tiny shop, squeezed between Catherine’s
Clothing Cache and Bit’s N Spit’s, common brass cog replacements. I’ve always
thought of the Blanket Emporium as Mole’s Hole. Truth be told, calling it a
shop is misleading. There wasn’t a sign or window front, just a foggy glass
door and peeling gold letters that read, “Hipothecary Apothecary.” Mole never
changed it from the last tenant.
We went in. Mother
says the bell on his door has always been broken. And calling it a bell isn’t a
whole truth. I think it was an old soup can that lost a fight with some
exploding powder.
But I can be certain
of this. Mole’s shop never changed and neither did he. The space was deeper than it was wide and
taller than it was deep. It was filled with crooked shelves that were covered
in blankets. Mole himself was a squinty, bald man with great big hands. I
promise you, he didn’t own a scrap of clothing that wasn’t rumbled and some
shade of brown.
That day, like every
other day, Mole sat on his stool behind the counter. “And who do we have here?”
Mole didn’t stutter or have an accent. But he clicked at his words when he
spoke. “Is it a boy or is it a girl?”
Mother held me up.
“This is my daughter, Renee Amily Mary Sarah Elise Yvette. But of course, we
all just call her Ramsey.”
That’s right. Mother
gave me a name so long and so impossible to say that everyone I’ve ever known
has shortened it to an acronym. Ramsey.
“Well,” Mole said.
“She’s a real looker.”
He was right. I was
born with pale grey eyes and a wild mess of jet black hair that sprouted and
grew like feathers. My hair never got any lighter and my eyes never got any
darker.
Mother sat me on the
floor and Mole came around from the counter.
He tugged a blanket
out from the nearest shelf. “This one is very nice. Wool. Hand quilted. The tag
says the previous owner died in his sleep from old age. Good way to go.”
“Very peaceful,”
Mother said.
He put the blanket
at my feet. “How about that one, little Ramsey?”
I never even reached
for it.
Mole took it back and grabbed another one. “No? Maybe
this? Knitted. Owner... died of… cancerous ulcers. I’ll give it to you at eight
percent off.”
“That’s very generous.”
Mole put that one on
my lap.
Mother says I picked
it up, threw it at his feet and applauded myself.
“Do you have
anything cotton?” Mother asked. “My own blanket is cotton. Perhaps she takes
after me.”
“Of course. Let
me—Oh! There she goes!”
Mother says I took
off like there was a flame under my bottom.
I crawled to the far
right corner of Mole’s Hole and dove into a pile of blankets.
“They’re all
discount,” Mole said. “Blankets with some extra wear in them, had more than one
owner.”
I emerged with a
black and grey damask print blanket. I sucked on my thumb and pressed the
blanket to my face like it had always been there to comfort and protect me.
“That was quick.”
Mole said. “Must be a good match, bonded pretty strong.” He took the blanket
from me and I wailed like a naked newborn.
Mole’s face went white.
“Is there something
wrong?”
“I—I don’t know how
this got here. Tag says the blanket failed its last owner. Woman, 32 years old,
killed by a monster hiding under her bed.
I continued to
scream.
Mother clutched her
heart. “Ramsey chose a broken blanket?”
“I’m so sorry. We
could give her another one, but—”
“But it’s too late.
She’s already bonded with that one.” Mother took the blanket from Mole and
rubbed the fabric between her fingers. It was ratty and filled with holes.
“This won’t protect her. She’ll never be truly safe in the night.”
“I’m so sorry. I
don’t know what to do.”
Mother gave me the
blanket and I stopped crying. “What’s done is done. We’ll buy this one, but I
must caution you to take stock of your inventory and remove anything that
shouldn’t be given to children.”
“Of course.”
We left Mole’s Hole.
I carried my blanket and Mother carried me. She insists she maintained her
composure on the train ride home and I’ve never doubted her.
And so life passed
by without incident until the night I was three years, six months and two days
old. Mother heard a scream from my bedroom and rushed down the hall in her puce
nightgown.
When she opened the
door, a shadow monster lay writhing on the floor, hog tied by my blanket. It
had been hiding behind my curtains. She says that I stood above it, bolder than
a bull, laughing as it couched black spots onto the floor.
She scooped me up,
carried me from my room and shut my door. In the morning, the sun came and
light streamed through my bedroom window. She wouldn’t let me back inside until after noon. When I went back, the shadow monster had
burned away, leaving ashes on the rug. My blanket lay on the floor, still
twisted up.
My name is Ramsey.
This is my story as the first monster hunter.
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