Monsters!

‘There are giants out in the hinterland,

There are monsters, horrible frogs,

There are birds of prey out there all day

There are streets of savage dogs.

There are bakers, making their virgin pies

From the girls found out on the street,

I think you’d better stay home and play

For you don’t know what you’ll meet.’

 

Janelle sat curled in the corner, with

Her eyes as wide as the moon,

She’d always led such a sheltered life

In a house, as dark as the tomb.

She’d never questioned her father, nor

The dreadful things that he taught,

He told her he was protecting her

For life out there was fraught.

 

She’d peer on out of the windows, see

The trees that waved in the breeze,

‘The sap on the lower branches will

Reach out, and capture your knees.’

She’d hear the wind in its savage bursts

That waited to take her breath,

And wondered why she would have to die

But the world outside was death.

 

She barely remembered her mother

Who had gone by the age of three,

A wistful smile for a fretful child,

He said she was drowned at sea.

But he often sat by a garden plot

When he said it was safe that day,

And planted a bed of forget-me-nots

To keep grave diggers away.

 

He’d only leave for a weekly shop

And he’d wear a coat and hat,

Dodging over some fences to

Avoid the giant rat,

The snakes were fierce in the supermart

And he said, ‘I do declare,

Don’t ever let me forget my hat

Or the bats will get in my hair.’

 

Janelle would sit by a mirror, and

Despair at her pale, white face,

She rarely got any sun on it

And her body was starting to waste,

Her legs were thin and her arms were skin

And bone, her breasts were small,

Her ribs would show in the mirror’s glow

She hadn’t much weight at all.

 

Whenever he’d leave her on her own

He’d be sure to lock the door,

‘We don’t want the zombies creeping in

And dragging you through the floor!’

He said they lived right under the house

But only came out at night,

And that’s when the cats would shriek and yowl,

They put up an awesome fight!

 

One day he went and forgot to lock,

He must have misplaced the key,

Janelle stood still by the open door

As the wind blew fitfully,

She took a breath, and it wasn’t death

But the sweetest of perfume,

The air was laden with scent that day

With the roses in full bloom.

 

She ventured into the garden, felt

The grass, so soft on her feet,

While the preying birds sat up in the trees,

But all that they did was tweet,

There were no bats, nor a giant rat,

Though a dog came wagging its tail,

And she saw a man in a crimson van

Pull up, delivering mail.

 

She finally flung her arms up high

In a moment then, and cried,

‘The world is wonderful, he was wrong,

He lied,’ she said, ‘He lied!’

By the time he arrived back home again

Janelle was gone with the wind,

But a policeman stood in his lounge and said,

‘At last! Well, do come in!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Valentine]

The first part is like some eerie tale a child wants to hear on Halloween. It would be enough to scare the heck out of even a grown up. What did the policeman want with the father? I did not grasp that part. Otherwise you are the artist of fairy tales. Kathie

[Avinash]

There are many parents who while having no eligibility to be so turn their children into circus animals. Feeding them lies and fear so that the child is nothing but a slave. A very thought provoking.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

that growing sense of wonder and fear leaves one with curious thoughts, well done, good read.

[Marie]

I fully expected Janelle to go out and find terrible snakes eating poison frogs, and all the rest of it. Instead she finds a wonderful world. Another happy ending.

[R Smith]

a great scary tale David, who needs a Father like him, so glad she escaped although along with a couple of other reviews i'd like to know what the police did him for, imprisonment, did she run out and die under a car, its intriguing me :)

[MomzillaNC]

Another gripping tale. Imprisoned all her life by lies; Janelle embraced freedom in the truth. What commentary might we take from that? And, what was the father hiding from all those years that the police finally ran him to ground for?

[Nila M.]

I love this, I smiled at the cleverness the whole way through. We definitely construct our inner world's and they manifest as the world outside.