When she was a child, she was afraid of many things. As an adult, she is still scared of many things, but the quality of said fears has shifted to the mature. Like all children, she was afraid of the dark. Like, seriously afraid of the dark. From ages 3 – 10, while living in suburbia, she feared the darkness in two specific capacities. The first, so scared was she of the dark that she refused to go upstairs for any reason without first turning on the light at the top of the stairs (thankfully there was a switch at the bottom) and, even then, someone had to physically come to the bottom of the stairs and watch her ascend, which made going to her room whenever she wanted to or using the only bathroom in the house (naturally located upstairs) a very trying ordeal.

Now, the second instance of her being afraid of the dark may have less to do with the dark and more to do with the fact that her family is comprised of a bunch of shitheads. The basement. She can’t be sure when the suburban house was built, but it was definitely before it was cool to have a finished basement to hang out. This basement was damp and musty; the walls were crumbling with what she could assume was lead paint, and it had a door halfway down the stairs that opened to the side of the house. Why? Why the scary murder door that only intruders would use? Anyway, while the basement was, indeed, scary and dark, it had the bonus of housing two monsters – the duck and Grotost (she is guessing at the spelling of this monster)

Let her explain. She was afraid of the duck in the basement because the neighbor across the street – who was friends with her mother and whose son she was convinced she would marry for years – used to say there was a duck there to get her to behave. Why a duck? She doesn’t know, but young Siemelle must have pictured something horrifying. Why did her mother allow this? She doesn’t have the answer to that either. What is worse? When her mother tried to get her off the bottle and onto a sippy cup, her mother used the duck in her efforts! Mom blamed the duck for stealing her bottle! Older Siemelle doesn’t know where this duck went. Perhaps he retired and traveled Europe with his duck wife, stealing baby bottles along the way—that jerk.

As for Grotost, he was doing her father’s work. Her father always told her about a monster named Grotost and how he came after bad children. (I know what you’re thinking – “Geez, she must have been a pretty bad child for everyone around her to invent monsters.” To that, she says mind your business!) And Grotost? He lived in the basement with the duck. We don’t talk about Grotost anymore. She did a Google search to find any information she could about said monster. She assumes he is a German monster because her father’s family is German. However, she believes that internet sleuths have vanquished all mention of said creature, ensuring that he is securely locked away in the bowels of the internet (like on page 237 of a Google search because no one will search beyond page three). Thank you, courageous warriors. Thank you.

Stay tuned for part 2, where she is still afraid of the dark as a teenager living in a rural community.

Most fears are basic: fear of the dark, fear of going down in the basement, fear of weird sounds, fear that somebody is waiting for you in your closet. Those kinds of things stay with you no matter what age.

R. L. Stine

Just breathe

Siemelle