The Shadow War

I tiptoed down the three stairs to the sliding, wooden door to my dad’s bedroom. The house was dark and quiet and to my knowledge, my whole family was asleep. I stepped down onto the small platform that separated the three steps from the kitchen to my dad’s room and the endless steps down to the basement where my older brother TJ and older sister Carrie slept.

2003, I was 8 years old and more terrified of the monsters I believed to live under my bed than the fact that my country just went to war with Iraq for the terrorist acts on the trade centers two years previous.

            I heard my name in a hushed tone down at the bottom of the stairs. “Go back to your bed,” TJ said.

            Without a word I climbed back up the three steps to the kitchen and I waited. At the age of seven I felt like I waited for an hour in the kitchen before attempting to enter my father’s room again. As I waited I couldn’t keep still. I looked around the dark area, my eyes had adjusted by now and I could see the shape of the kitchen. The shine of a streetlight through the small window above the kitchen sink let in a minimal amount of light and it felt like a spotlight of a stage. I felt vulnerable; as if I could be seen all too clearly by the monsters and ghosts I feared the most, it felt as if they were all waiting to pounce on me. I knew that once I made it to the safety of my dad’s room and crawled under the covers of his bed that I would be safe. If his presence would not keep the monsters away, his snoring surely would.

            I descended the steps to the platform once more and all was quiet this time. I drew open the wooden door slowly, making sure to make as little sound as possible. I opened it just enough so that I could slip through and closed it as quietly as I had opened it. My father’s snoring filled the room and I let out a breath of relief. I was finally safe from all of the monsters and other creatures that lived in the rest of the house, and especially from the ones that lived in my room. I circled around the bed to the other side and slid under the covers. My dad’s skin was warm and I snuggled up close to him and let his snores lull me to sleep.

My father led me to my bedroom by my hand, gently. He was speaking but I don’t remember what he was saying. Maybe I was wrapped up in another daydream, thinking about my stuffed animals and wishing they were real so at night I would know I wasn’t alone in my room with the monsters under my bed and the ghost outside my window that scratched at the glass in an attempt to come in. Or maybe I was listening as much as I could to my dad, but I had gotten lost in the comfort that his voice provided that what he was actually saying meant nothing to me. Perhaps I was simply tired, and his words blew past me like the wind outside my window.

Pulling back the comforter and sheets, he lifted me up into my bed, even though I could have easily climbed onto the white sheets myself. In his left hand he held the most magical book, the pages were lined with gold and the red and cream cover had the picture of brown teddy bear on it. Though I know there was more to the cover, I cannot remember the name or what other characters from the stories the book held might have accompanied the bear. I called across to my brother; he loved when our father read from the story book as much as I did.

“Hurry!” My voice squeaked with excitement.

I sat cross-legged on my bed and Nick ran from his room into mine. He wore a giant black NASCAR shirt that he had received from our dad, who had an endless amount of the shirts. Nick joined me on my bed, crossing his legs like mine, his legs boney and pale.

Our father opened the book and asked us what he should read. Nick and I might have argued over which of our favorites that our dad should read that night, or maybe we agreed that he should read The Velveteen Rabbit again. The boy in the story had gotten very sick and it was ordered by the doctors that all his toys should be burned, including the velveteen rabbit. The rabbit in the story reflected on all the memories with the boy and after producing a real tear, he became a live rabbit. Our father flipped to the story, and all too quickly story time came to an end. An end where the rabbit watched the boy the next summer and the boy seemed to recognize his old friend. He closed the book and looked at us, our eyes bright, yearning for more.

“Time for bed,” He said, lifting himself from the edge of my bed.

We groaned in response. Just one more, we begged in unison. My father shook his head and probably said something about us needing our sleep to grow properly. Nick hopped off my bed and hugged our father before saying goodnight and leaving the room. My father tucked me into bed and kissed me on the forehead, said goodnight and approached the doorway. He turned off my light and looked back at me with a smile.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too dad,” I replied. And maybe I had added a question, something about the monsters under my bed as the fear crept under my skin in my father’s coming departure. Or maybe I ignored the idea completely, trying to fool myself enough to sleep before the fear overtook all of my thoughts. A small night light lit up part of my room with its soft golden glow, and the light from the bathroom leaked into my room from the hall to illuminate a good portion of my room as well. Laying my head down on my pillow, I might have fallen asleep easily that night, or maybe it was a night where my eyes darted from corner to corner of my small room, waiting for any sign of danger.

At some point I lifted myself out of my bed and hopped off of my bed, careful to jump far enough from the bed so that no monster would be able to grab my ankle and pull me under. Again, I tiptoed out of my room and through the living room and kitchen before reaching the three steps down to my father’s bedroom door. I stepped down and quietly opened the door. Upon entering the room I noticed an extra shape in the bed with my father, and quietly I sighed. Lori was over. I’m not sure I really comprehended who Lori was to my father at the time, or why they slept in the same bed some nights. I just knew that the nights that she was over, I could not sleep with my dad, that his snores could not be my shield from the monsters on those nights.

I slid out of the room and up the three stairs, my heart pounding as I walked through the dark house and back to my room. I entered the living room and noticed a dark shape on each of the two couches, Lori had brought her kids. One of our three cats bolted past me and I jumped, eyes darting back and forth, waiting for an ambush. Once I had calmed down a bit, I took a deep breath and gathered the courage to enter the battlefield that was my room. I ran into my room and quickly hopped up into my bed, a smile on my face. I had outsmarted the monsters again in my jump, for none of them could have grabbed me because I was much too fast for them.

The ghost scratched my window from outside and I held one of my many stuffed animals to my chest. “Be ready soldiers,” I whispered. “Tonight the monsters are on the offense, and the ghost is getting closer and closer to scratching his way through the glass.” I expressed my need of defense to the limp and voiceless, bead-filled toys. They were tough, I convinced myself, they would protect me from any ambush while I slept. Though, deep down I knew that they could not help me, and that was why most nights I left my bunker and joined my father in his monster-free zone. I had to cross no man’s land in order to get to the protective area, but I knew that I was speedy and clever enough to time my movements just right so that the monsters wouldn’t know I was gone until I was already asleep and hidden by my father’s snores.

Tonight I was on my own though, and it wasn’t the first night that it had happened. This woman who went by the name of Lori had invaded my routine, she had taken over the military base against the creatures that crept around at night and had caused me to fight them off on my own. Little did I know that the nights would become more frequent, and my advancement in ranks would quickly scale up from Private to Lieutenant General. My father would always be the General of our household, but it didn’t seem as if my other siblings tried to fight against darkness that slid out of the shadows when the lights shut off. So I was left to defend the entire house by myself, orders cut off from base by the slumbering shape of Lori next to the General.

I hated the night shift, I just wished to sleep, but my eyes couldn’t stop looking at the shadows around my room. The enemy side could attack at any moment. Holding a ceremony, I gave my companions higher ranks and left them with my night shift post.

“Teddy, Tiger, and Cheddar,” I said to three of them. “You’re in charge tonight, make sure to check under the bed every few minutes, I’m counting on you.”

I saluted the stuffed bear, tiger and mouse and crawled under the covers, closing my eyes. I slept lightly, waking to the slightest of noises, but in time I got used to it. I got used to waking up on Saturday mornings to find Sam and Megan, Lori’s children, staring at Nick and I while we slept. They woke up much earlier than I did, and I didn’t know how to feel about the two. Their invasion to our home was much like the invasion of the creatures that lived under my bed. I had not noticed the effect their entrance into our home would have on me for a long time, never did it cross my mind that in order to defeat the monsters that lived under my bed, I would have to move my bed entirely, to create a new base in another home.

C.K. Fulfer 

A Chemical Suicide

Trembling, he sits and waits for the news.

His mother called during a Chemistry

test, his favorite class.

“Tyler,” she said,

“I need you, come home.”

He never heard such sorrow

Soaked into her voice

Like water to an overwrought sponge.

It leaked from her, dripped

from every word and froze

on the back of his neck

while he ran two blocks home

his backpack left on the back of a chair.

He sat in the Emergency Room

listening to the mix of beeps from separate

heart monitors and the shuffling of feet

across the symmetrical white tile.

He found it hard to breathe

in the sterility of what they claimed

to be Oxygen in the large waiting room.

He didn’t have asthma but the way he took

each breath could have fooled the best of doctors.

A drowning man’s dying breath

couldn’t compare to the oxygen he lacked,

couldn’t compare to the battle his lungs

fought to keep working properly.

He desperately looked around

For a single air bubble to breathe in,

A sliver of hope that could possibly save a life.

A lone high-shrilled beep

and it was all done.

White lab coat walking over,

the sterility of his hands

Like the bleached bones of Death.

Apologies, meaningless words

said over and over to hundreds

of thousands daily. He stared

at his own hands that still twitched

with the answers to his chemistry test.

Hands that had only known a world

Of education now squeezing

Each other tighter and tighter

As if the pin-pricks of heated discomfort                      

could bring his mother back to him.

They Call Me Mr. Socially Awkward

The quilt laid out underneath you

Is wrinkled and dirtied with august sweat,

Stitched with the frozen

Temperatures of September.

Feathered pillows stuffed with an unknown

Bird cushion your head some nights,

others you toss and turn as the feathers

stick you in the neck. Scratches, drawings  

of a faded red pearl necklace across your skin.

You yearn to feel the warmth of the quilt

as a small black fan propels cool air

on your face, eyes closed.

A thin-lined coma

Entraps your mind for hours,

broken by the off-put eagerness

of an alarm clock. You venture

forth to the next class, bag slung over one

shoulder. Sweat sticks to your brow,

skin clammy as you walk, avoiding

eye contact with passersby. Cotton sweatshirt

clings to your back, but you shiver

as the morning breeze finds a path

up that one hole in your right

sleeve. Your thumb wiggles in and out of

the hole, nervously.

Seated among empty desks,

a sense of ease in the lack of CO2.

You don’t have to pretend

to interest yourself in that girl’s life

who rattles on about her high heels.

You’ve got extra space on the desk

tops around you to spread out.

Fooling yourself, no single paper

of yours will touch another table

other than the one you sit at now.

Hot needles to your skin, cheeks

red when they whisper into your ear,

right—but so wrong, a reminder

of the hearing aid you own

that’s not placed in the canal.

You smile and nod

as if you heard about the silver

heels she just bought off eBay,

checking your wrist all the while.

A lack of religion but abundance

of prayers for those patches

that lie on your bed in a quiet room.

Orphan Boy in the Arcade

He inserts his last quarter into the Pac-Man Machine,

bouncing on his tip-toes, his sneakers slap his heels

like flip-flops. Duct tape poorly covers holes

in the middle of his sweatshirt, elbow skin flashing

with the movement of his skinny arms

as he moves the joystick, avoiding another Ghost.

Skin black with dirt where his knee shows under

ripped blue jeans.

I never asked his name.

We formed a routine each morning,

he would wait for me as I raised the gate

to the small arcade, lights on,

radio set low as we exchanged money.

He never failed to show with a twenty,

a return of eighty quarters in a large green

bowl, his hands much too small to handle

the change on his own. He would immediately

return to his Pac-Man game and insert

the first quarter, toes his only support

in reaching the joystick and white buttons.

I checked all the consoles in the shop

before dragging a chair over to the boy

who was happy to kneel on the cushion

and rest his feet.

At lunch I would pull out

a turkey and swiss sandwich, Doritos

and a few Oreos. I’d call over the orphan

boy to share my stash before we both

resumed to our posts.

No words exchanged,

silence was all we needed,

a mutual understanding of space

and hunger was the building blocks

to our companionship.

The beeps of the game fill the room,

the boy could lose now or in ten minutes,

either way I need to close shop when he finishes.

A woman of medium stature stumbles

into the arcade, paper sack concealing

bottle cradled to her chest. I open my mouth,

utter an objection of her entrance and the time

but she flicks a dirtied palm in my direction.

She yanks the boy off the blue chair,

his sneakers drag across the dark

galaxy carpeting as his eyes widen.

The orphan didn’t resist, he knew

not to get in the way of a mother

and the child she cradled in her arms.

Dear Robert, They keep telling me I’m Dead

But everything is too white for that.

Did they really think that the endless

white space would remind me of death?

Sweet love, I smell your cologne

in the root of my nostrils.

Come on Robert!

I want to see something beyond the white walls

And stained tile.

There you are sweetie,

wearing those clothes?

I didn’t buy you white scrubs.

Why so solemn?

Reach out; give me your hand,

and let’s go eat at Mac’s.

A burger could do you good, Bones.

Love, you are walking away,

you’re supposed to take me with you.

Where’s that music coming from?

Robert? That’s our song, isn’t it lovely?

Our wedding song…

Take this sinking boat

and point it home,
we've still got time.
Raise your hopeful voice

you have a choice

Robert,

they keep telling us we’re dead.

I can’t get our song out of my head.

Our waltz, your callused hands

On my hips, your every step

So calculated, gentle, despite your large feet.

I don’t know why they try to lie,

I see you every day in your white scrubs.

You visit me daily, very much alive

With the heat of your hand in mine.

They keep forcing pills down my throat Robert.

once they even mixed it with my food,

but I caught the miss-shaped chunk of potatoes

and the oblong piece of corn among the rest.

The orange tic-tacs give me stomach

cramps, migraines that blur my vision.

I saw my mother yesterday Robert,

I nearly fainted in fright.

It’s been five years

Since she passed away.

They keep telling me you’re dead, Robert.

You visit me less now, whispering:

 You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won.

In my ear, your hot breath

on my neck a pool of electricity.

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back to where it all began.

There’s a man in white scrubs

Who bathes me now, his hands

callused and gentle.

I don't know you
But I want to,

I’ve no time.