When we were children, we called out to our parents in the middle of the night.

We make claims of monsters and hauntings.

I cannot remember the world through the eyes of myself as a child.

I cannot remember if those monsters were ever even there.

All I remember is my dad coming in and telling me that the monsters were not real.

Still, he would look all around my room, under my bed, and in my closet like he had

a treasure map to find some sort of hidden treasure.

This time went on.

I would stop calling for him.

No longer would I need his help to fend off dark visions because they were not any.

I wonder if they were ever actually there, if they were maybe.

Maybe they left, because I spent so long being told they were not.

Does it work the other way around though?

So many adults wondered through life knowing monsters are not real.

What if you saw one?

Just by pure happenstance, you came across something that you previously assumed it did

not exist.

With that knowledge, sink into your mind and create a consciousness that could bear a witness

to all manner of oddities, a previously unseen world now visible with a new set of glasses.

After those things assaulted me during the thunderstorm, I kept a close eye on the trees.

I watched the way they moved and felt my heart skip a beat whenever the wind pushed

them around.

...