Phil Penne Creations

#11 - The Child

 

 

        You can still hear them yelling, even with the door shut and your hands over your ears. You hear Daddy call Mommy a bad name, and Mommy throws something – you can hear it smash on a wall in the kitchen. Sometimes one of them will get really mad and go outside and slam the door, then drive away fast in the car. You don’t like it when they do that, but at least then it’s quiet. This time they’re not leaving though – they just keep talking loud, and saying bad words, and saying that they hate each other. You think that if they hate each other that much maybe it’s your fault and that they hate you too.

        You stay very quiet - if they hear you they’ll get mad and come into your room, and they might hurt your arm like last time. You couldn’t tell the doctor because Mommy said it was a secret, and it’s not nice to tell a secret, even to the doctor, or even to the man who talks to everybody in church. You wonder why it’s not nice to tell a secret; Mommy said that it’s not nice to tell lies either, but she told the doctor you fell off your tricycle.

        You wish you could be somewhere else right now. You can’t hide in your closet because the witch will get you, and there are monsters under your bed. So you sit huddled in the corner by your dresser, crying and waiting for the yelling to stop...

 

 

Seeing something through a child's eyes sometimes offers a dim view. As a child, you're more imaginative, but also more susceptible to pain.

When there are monsters under the bed, sometimes the only place to hide is a rabbit hole.