every little thing is a monster

When I was 5, we had just moved into a new house that had an intercom system. Being so young, I had little concept of what that was or how it could be used to profoundly change the course of my childhood until the night my parents left me in the care of my older brother. The first brilliant idea he had was to let me watch the omen. The second brilliant idea was to send me to bed in tears and in total fear for my little life. Off to bed I marched sullen and alone, that is until I heard the voice of the devil penetrating my room. "The devil is inside you" was repeated multiple times over that intercom system, each with a more sinister accent, each with more evil fits of laughter following. I was paralyzed in fear, after all, the devil was clearly inside me. From that night on, I lay in the exact center of my bed so that I could make the fastest escape from either side should the devil show himself. I would see images of the devil in the patterns of my wallpaper. In short, I became insane at a young age. After years of paranoia, I began to accept the fact that maybe I wasn't possessed, maybe the devil wasn't there at all, maybe every little thing, every irrational fear was not an actual monster. There was a nice little reprieve, but now every little bruise, every sore muscle, every inexplicable headache could be that pesky devil inside me once again...guess it's time to sleep in the middle of the bed, only this time I'll arrange, in perfect rows on either side of me, all my supplement bottles for good measure.