Aaaah!

Word Count: 943

      When I tell my daughter, "clean your room," the message seems to garble itself between her ears and brain.  I think it winds up something like, "Sylvia, pretend you're the Princess and the Pea, with dirty clothes and stuffed animals."  Her bed positively bulges in the center, with all the stuff she shoves underneath.  I don't mind at all, much to the chagrin of my former quilting circle.  I imagine they still talk about it, although now I wouldn't know.  After what happened, I just can't participate anymore.
      I know I'm not winning any parenting awards this way.  So sue me, if I'm able to spare my daughter even one irrational fear.  Sometimes, the most irrational is the one that can kill you.

      When I was growing up, the space between my box spring and floor was always empty.  My mother would even lie down on the floor and check, after I'd done my weekly cleaning.  I wondered why it was so terribly important.  Then somehow, I got the idea I couldn't put anything under my bed, because there was a bottomless pit in the center.  I even imagined, at the bottom of the bottomless pit, a monster waited.  Something evil, that could turn itself into forgotten underwear, or a shoe kicked underneath.  Anything that might possibly poke itself under my bed.  Then, if I found it and put it on, it would get me. 
      Isn't it funny, how a child's imagination can take anything and run with it?

      Perhaps somehow as an extension of that, what I always loved most was the feeling of snuggling into my bed at the end of the day.  It was a little slice of heaven to curl up in a quilt, and feel it grow toasty from my body heat.  I felt almost invincible, wrapped in warmth, even with that chasm yawning below me.  I would almost not be afraid of it anymore.
      When I moved into my first apartment, I bought a futon mattress.  No frame.  I just couldn't sleep with empty space between me and the floor, now that I was choosing the furniture.
      Isn't it funny, how childhood fears can haunt you?

      Thankfully, it was never a subject for debate why I didn't want a bed frame.  My roommates thought I was being minimalist, or Zen.  Sylvia's father said it was great for his back.  There were many things he didn't think were so great, however, and soon enough it was just her and me.  She wanted a "real" bed eventually, and I couldn't really argue.  Even now, it's okay; she doesn't have my fear.

      Last week was Halloween, the night some people say hidden things come out to play.  I believe them now. 
      I'd gone to bed cozily breaking in a quilt I'd just finished.  I had one of those dreams, like something moving that jerks you out of sleep.  There was a weird, dry rustling, then something fell lightly on top of me.  I looked around, bewildered as a person just woken from deep slumber.  I thought I was shaking at first, because I saw the blanket moving.  But I was still; it was the blanket. 
      A dead black blanket, completely unlike my colorful crazy quilt.
      "What's happening?"  I thought.  "What are you?"
      I had a thought that wasn't mine then, in a voice like snagged nylon.  "I am the thing from the abyss, which you fear most..."  The blanket moved around my lower body, like a huge external tapeworm.  It was talking inside my head, with an immediacy and intimacy that revolted me. 
      "I don't believe you.  I don't believe IN you.  I haven't believed that for years!"  I thought back at it, unwilling to risk waking my little girl.  I didn't have much faith in my voice at the moment anyway.
      "Of course you haven't... but belief is irrelevant.  It is the fear that feeds... and you never stopped fearing me."  It continued to wrap me up into itself, crawling over my skin as my skin crawled.  "You ask what I am?  I am Blanketzebub, the Lord of the Fuzz.  I am Quiltsifer..."  Its corners turned up, looming above me in a ghastly cross-stitched grin.  "But you can call me Master!"
      A dark chuckle bunched up in my mind, and snapped it. 
      I fought like a rabid mongoose, clasped in the coils of a polyester python.  I don't know what stuff demon blankets are made of-, but it puts all shred-resistant fibers to shame.  It had already constricted my legs; I rolled out of my futon and across the floor like there was a house fire, making for my closet and the sewing box inside. 
      It must have read my thoughts as well, and flailed fiercely for my arms.  I barely managed to grab my dress shears, and hacked without mercy through the fabric engulfing me.  The thread-count must have been astronomical, but my blades were hand-ground, and recently sharpened. 
      I chopped myself free of the fetid coils, and reduced the demon to shreds no seamstress could ever patch.  Dreadful howls ripped through my skull, as a billowing stench of mingled brimstone and melting synthetics filled the room.  The fragments of apparition vanished, and I coughed and hacked in the foul miasma, until oblivion.

      "Mommy?  Mommy?!"  A small warm hand was shaking my shoulder.  I groaned, rolled over, and looked into Sylvia's deep blue eyes.  "Why are you on the floor, Mommy?"
      "I had a bad dream, sweetheart.  Just a bad dream."
      "Okay.  Just glad you didn't fall in the hole, Mommy."

      Isn't it funny, how children will see what you really don't want to?