HEAVEN HAS NO PLACE FOR
MONSTERS.
By Noah S. R. de Luzuriaga
The little girl waited in the shadows.
Daddy wasn't home yet. Daddy had forgotten to pay the power bill
again, so she couldn't even turn on the lights. Needless to say, she
was very afraid.
There wasn't any food left in the
fridge, she thought, but there might still be some water. Looking
about her, the little girl tiptoed out, believing that monsters were
watching, from the darkness, all around her. But that was silly.
Monsters weren't real, she thought.
Reaching into the fridge, the little
girl, out of that strange animal instinct that we all possess, spun
around. It was then she saw the figure in the dark, the monster in
the shadows.
She didn't scream, she knew from
experience that screaming never helped, but she did run. Hands,
gloved hands, so strong and unyielding, grabbed her. She didn't fight
back. She just waited, waited for the monster to eat her.
“Where is your father?” said a
voice that was harder than rock.
The girl wouldn't answer, she was too
afraid.
Then, the monster took off its face and
the girl realized, it wasn't a monster, it was a man.
“My name is Bruce. What's yours?”
“Joy”, said the girl, who liked the
new man's voice better than the monsters.
“Joy. That's a pretty name. Are you
here on your own?”
“Yes. But Daddy will be back soon.”
“Where is he?”
“He's off being a superhero. He goes
up, up and away, saves people, beats bad guys. He's very strong,
handsome, a little bit like you, but with yellow hair.”
“Your father's a superhero?”
“Yup.”
Then the nice man, Bruce, she
remembered, looked sad. She wondered why. Maybe he was just jealous
of her Daddy.
“Joy.....I ….”
The door opened. Joy turned to look at
it, and when she looked back, Bruce was gone.
“Daddy! Daddy! You just missed him,
there was a monster, then a man named Bruce, and ...”
She didn't finish the sentence....being
backhanded by your father would shut anyone up.
“Shut your trap. Get me a beer.”
“But, there isn't any...”
The father, the “superhero” raised
his hand, and Joy ran before she could get another smack.
A thousand thoughts swirled throughout
Joy's mind. She'd been a bad girl, disturbing her father. There was
nothing in the fridge but water, so what was she going to do? And
where was Bruce?
She heard a scream, from the other
room, from her daddy, but it wasn't an angry scream. It was a scared
one. She rushed into the other room, and saw the monster holding her
daddy in the air with one arm.
“Put him down. YOU PUT HIM DOWN.”
“Joy”....it was Bruce's voice,
coming from the monster's mouth.
“Please put him down. He's my Dad”.
The monster whose name was Bruce
dropped the father. Without another word, he walked out. Joy ran to
her father, who looked like he was asleep, and the poor girl tucked
herself in next to the father who was her world, her guide, her hero.
In another, similar dark place, the
monster took off his face once more, and talked to his butler.
“Alfred, contact Gotham social
services. Have them get Joy. Get her out of there, away from HIM,
away from that....that....”, Bruce stopped, sat back in his chair.
“She protected him Alfred. She had no
idea who he really was. To her, she was perfect. Why couldn't she
see?'
“Master Bruce, sometimes, the most
downtrodden simply close their eyes, thank God for the experiences of
life, no matter how horrible it is. “
Bruce simply nodded. He knew evil,
faced evil. But this?
This poor girl was in hell, made all
the worse, simply because she thought it was heaven. And heaven has
no place for monsters.
(photo courtesy of :http://darknesswithinshadow.wikia.com/wiki/The_Odium)
