I Used to Believe Faulkner Was a Monster

When I was a kid, we used to go to my maternal grandmother’s house for Christmas and Easter. I had one Christian and (still have) one Jewish grandma, so we divided up the holidays. Somehow Thanksgiving became a Jewish holiday, but that’s another story. Anyway, my sister and I always stayed in a room that used to belong to two of my aunts when they were kids. At the head of each bed is a kind of long alcove-shelf in the wall, lined with books from when the aunts were in high school and college. The most prominent book on my shelf, because of the design of the spine (“Design of the Spine” sounds like a terrible mystery novel doesn’t it?) was a paperback Faulkner anthology. It was pea green, with FAULKNER written in what looked like salmon-colored streaks of blood. In fact the font was almost identical to that of Helter Skelter, the book about the Manson Family that grandma had in the den.

As a kid, I assumed that FAULKNER was a monster, like FRANKENSTEIN(‘s monster) or DRACULA. Sometimes, before going to sleep, I had to turn the FAULKNER book around backwards, so the scary name faced the wall.

Ironically, I fanatically love Faulkner now. He’s definitely not warm and cuddly, but he won’t come after you with an axe, either.

Jason Gots, Brooklyn

i used to believe that there were monsters in my room when i went to bed and i made my mom make this "potion" that she had to spray every night before i went to bed..well i later found out there werent any monsters and that the "potion" was just some good old sink water.

Courtney

Not really a monster as such, but when I was young I was convinced an evil Egon from Ghostbusters would put up a ladder to my window as I went to sleep. I had to make sure the curtains were completely closed so he couldn't see me.

Bruno

I about 5 and making my little sisters bed, and I thought I saw a hand with a cuff around it, and I assumed that it belonged to a magician. For a while after that, I was scared to sleep in the bottom bunk of bunk beds because I thought a magician would come out in the middle of the night and saw me in half or something.

Niki

I believed that a monster lived, not under my bed, under my sheets. If there were sheets on my bed, I had to fold the bottom part of the sheets so my feet were over top. Some how, this stopped the monster from getting me

Go figure

I believed that public parks closed at dusk because werewolves slept under the dirt during the day, but awoke and came out at night. I figured they were trapped within the area of the park, though, so sometimes when I was near one at night, walking with my folks or riding in a car, I thought little taunts to them. Then I realized that if I ever accidentally was in a park at night, they'd be mad about the taunting, so I began to apologize, but I had to do it out loud or else they'd think it wasn't sincere. I told people I was saying sorry to the land because it couldn't be a forest.

Patrick

When I was around 4-12 I beleived there were monsters ion my room at night. We had a sponge paint job on my walls, and i could swear that some of the random sponge designs were evil faces, one i remeber was like a half woman half werewolf. Also, I beleived there were wicked ants and dwarves under my bed. If any body part hung over my bed the dwarf would slice that body part off with an axe and feed it to the ants and they would carry away the body part. Also, I'd beleive if I moved at all in my bed or made a sound whatsoever wolves would pounce up and eat me. And the sound of my own heart in my ear on the pillow made me think that someone...an axe murderer for some reason was coming up the stairs and those were his footsteps... Yeah... I was a frightened kid and screamed alot at night. The only thing that turned it around was when I was 12 I talked to some native american woman and she told me that the wolves I was so afraid of were really there to protect me and guard me as my spirit friends... so another funny beleif, but i was no longer afraid at night after that, though I still don't sleep with any part of my body over the bed...

Overractive Imagination

I used to believe that monsters lived under my bed.
When I complained about them, my babysitter would take a spray bottle labeled 'monster spray' and 'spray' away the monsters.
After a while, I grew sorry for the monsters and tried to apologize to them. I slept under my bed for weeks, waiting for them to come back.

Mike

I had an extremely vivid imagination as a child and sometimes my friends caught the brunt of it. When i was about 5, i told the boy across the road that there was a grass monster who hid in our lawn, and you had to run him over with the [toy] lawnmower or else he would grab your ankles and drag you into the grass. And then you'd become a hedge :P He totally believed me, and was apparently really freaked out by it because his mum ended up coming over and asking me if i knew anything about it. Of course i feigned innocence.

Cynica

I used to wonder why people didn´t just put their heads under the Loch Ness to see if there was a monster or not. I though they were too scared to do that, and that maybe someone should take me there, so I would do that for humanity coz I had no fear.

Liam

when I was 6, I stay over night in my uncle's house in a small village. his house is surrounded by forest.I really scared that night and couldn't close my eyes because i heard a voice like furry-giant- monster dragging a chair all around the house. I thought It was Bigfoot came into my uncle house!! but the truth was.... that's my uncle snorring!! ;p

devi/borneo

i used to believe that the world was a big dollhouse. and each giant in another world, had a doll to take care of in the dollhouse. i was always afraid of what 'my' giant would do with me.

- belle

As a kid I was always hiding in the cupboard under the stairs, much to my mum's annoyance, as I always pulled the coats down. So she told me that if i didn't stay out of there, a monster would come out at night when i was sleeping and steal my teeth. I tired desperately to fall asleep with my mouth closed!

ruth

When i was little my Dad told me every Halloween that Monkeys with huge butcher knives would come after little brunettes with blue eyes and cut their head off.. so every year i wouldn't go out past dark on Halloween.. untill i was about 9

Cinnamon

When i was little, i had a guy jump out at me from underneath the leaf piles on the side of the street. This was on halloween. For a while after that, i thought that people were actually buried in those leaf piles, but later i found out the truth.

shaman queen

When I was five, we had a housefire. We lost everything. Wen the firemen were fighting the fire, my mom, baby sister and I were in the chief's car. My mom says that I said I knew how the fire started. "A dragon flew over and breathed down the chimney." Hey, I was five!

Carol F.

When I was a kid I use to believe that as soon as an individual got out of my eye sight they would turn into a monster not necessarily a bad monster just a monster.

C.K.

i used to think in the daytime there were monster that would hide and in the night when I was asleep they would come out and have a party.

go_rooney

when i was little i was scared of monsters under my bed so my mom made me "moster spray" it was in a little spray bottle and i would spray it upder my ben every night.

key

At the age of six, I was terrified of werewolves. I used to hide behind the couch whenever the Thriller video played on TV. Instead of falling victim to a werewolf attack, I decided (imagined) that I had a PET werewolf that I would send out each night to terrorize OTHER children.

Lauren