The Monster in Micah's Closet

Chompy

Micah, my son and the light of my life, turned 6 years old a few months ago. In keeping with his latest obsession, his birthday party was dinosaur-themed and one of his presents was a ticket to our regional Museum of Natural History. I recorded at least three hours of footage of him stomping around in the dinosaur boots I bought him. They make a roaring sound effect with every step. My husband gave me the eye when I picked them up, knowing I may very well be purchasing a bunch of sleepless nights. But I just couldn’t deny him the sheer joy of being a dinosaur.

Motherhood, so far, has been (and maybe always is) a rather shaky bit of business. I don’t have to explain the ups and downs to any woman who has undertaken it. Up to that point in my life, I wasn’t sure I’d ever have a child. As someone prone to bouts of crippling depression, I had always told myself that I would only have a child if and when I finally determined that life was not more pain than happiness. As I aged, I realized I would never establish this to my satisfaction. And as the ticks and tocks of my slowing biological clock became more resounding, I decided to have a child and make their life a happy one at all costs. Once Micah burst onto the scene, all my hesitations dissipated. He created the joy I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to give him.

I know every mother thinks their child is special. But I swear, my child is special. He picks up on emotional cues and responds with great sympathy and sensitivity to those around him. He hit major developmental milestones earlier than most kiddos. He speaks calmly and clearly to adults and other children alike. He reads at a higher level than his pre-kindergarten classmates. Most remarkable is his ability to draw and visualize. I don’t think my opinion is overly colored by my love for him. He is genuinely talented; and other parents and his teachers have agreed he displays a great precocity.

I’d like to think he inherited his creativity and talents from me, as I have always been the artsy type. I have a rich inner world and am visited nightly by powerful, vivid dreams that have been a constant wellspring of visual ideas. This has been a blessing and curse; in my dreams I see beautiful, sweeping visions, but I am equally prone to nightmares. Unfortunately for Micah, he seems to have taken after me, and experiences nighttime hallucinations and night terrors often. I have spent my fair share of sleepless nights consoling him.

He does have some coping mechanisms that he employs prior to calling for me or his father. He believes his nightlight wards off monsters. And he has made up an entourage of imaginary friends that protect him at night: Ellie the elephant and Spike the t-rex come to mind. I can’t complain too much when he is overwhelmed and has to sleep with me and his father in our bed, because I know he really is trying his best to be a big boy.

I’m not sure when I first noticed something was wrong. It was a confluence of observations that finally coalesced into alarm. First, when I picked him up from school, I noticed he was bringing back his paper bag lunch. When I asked him why, he said he was saving the snacks for later. When we got home, he took the bag to his room, straightaway. Up to that point, he had always eaten his whole lunch, and I didn’t think I was packing him too much food.

Then he asked me if he could eat dinner by himself in his room. I explained to him that we ate dinner as a family and he seemed nervous and upset. I’ve never been the kind of mother that forces a child to “finish your plate”, but Micah has a healthy appetite and usually eats most of what I serve him. This time he barely touched his food. I figured maybe he wasn’t feeling well and was about to come down with something. After dinner, as I was cleaning up, he watched me closely and when I was about to clear his uneaten plate into the trash he nearly came unglued.

“You have to save it!” he pleaded. He was on the verge of tears. I was unnerved, but I imagined maybe his class had learned something about recycling or conservation and he was being extra vigilant about wastefulness? I put his dinner in a tupperware and that calmed him down. That tupperware of food was missing the next morning. I just couldn’t understand why he wanted to wait and eat it later instead of at the table with us, or at what point in the night he had snuck down to get it.

Micah continued to bring home his lunch and ate less and less of his dinner, but would insist I package the rest for later. I allowed this to go on for a few days before I grew exasperated. I told him I was no longer going to save his dinner for him to eat later; he’d either eat it at the table during family dinner or he didn’t eat it at all. And if he brought his lunch home that would also go in the bin; he had to eat it at school at lunchtime.

He adjusted his strategy. He no longer brought home his lunch bag. And he started eating his dinners with relish, even asking for seconds. But when cleaning his room later that week, I found a lot of dirty napkins and empty paper bags under his bed. I realized he must have been hiding his lunch bag somewhere in his backpack or clothes. And the napkins indicated he was pulling some sleight of hand at the dinner table and squirreling away spoonfuls of food at a time. I admired his persistence and resourcefulness but was deeply concerned. Why was he going through all the trouble? Was his biological rhythm truly dictating this bizarre shift towards eating alone in the dead of night?

I told my husband the three of us needed to talk and we sat down together that weekend.

“Micah,we need to talk about food, about lunch and dinner. Why are you taking your food to your room instead of eating it at school and at the table?”

He was silent; looking left, looking right, looking at his shoes. Anything to avoid my eyes.

“Micah, does your belly hurt?”

He shook his head no, still looking down.

“Are you not very hungry at lunch time or dinner time?”

His lower lip trembled a little.

“I am hungry!” he stammered.

“Then why won’t you eat with us?”

“Because I have to feed Chompy!”

I felt a small rush of relief. It could be some grand, imagined dilemma. I had done similar things as child, once stealing my mother’s nickels from her wallet when she wasn’t looking and saving them up in the bathroom cabinet for admittance to Candyland (that such a place existed and that admittance could only be purchased with nickels was an idea that came to me in a dream).

“Who’s Chompy?”

He was looking at me more comfortably now, since I wasn’t being accusatory about Chompy, just interested.

“He’s the monster in my closet.”

“Oh!” I agreed, as if it were all quite natural, “I see. And Chompy likes people food?”

“No, he eats anything.”

“Well, if he eats anything then why do you have to give him your food to eat?”

“Because… I don’t want him to eat other stuff.”

I read between the lines. “Are you afraid he is going to try to eat you?”

Micah’s eyes widened into big, quivering pools of fear. I had hit the nail on the head.

“Oh, Micah,” I sighed, bringing him in close for a loving embrace, “closet monsters aren’t real, they are just in your head, and they can’t eat you. I know they seem real but you are safe, I promise.” Another thought struck me, “What about Spike? He’s a big, mighty T-Rex, surely he could tell Chompy to leave you alone.”

The tears that had been welling and ebbing at the edge of his eyelids finally poured forth. Micah wailed. His breath hitched and he shook and spasmed from the force of his sadness tearing outward. I was shocked by the power of his despair at that moment. When he could finally speak again, he lamented in between sharp gasps, “Chompy… ate… them… all…”

There was nothing I could say. I just held him until he was calm. I knew sooner or later the darkness that hung around me like a fog when I was little, poisoning my dreams, would come for him. I knew it would make him strong, make him interesting and unique, but would sometimes torment him. For the first time since I gave birth, I felt true remorse. What if Micah didn't think the curse was worth the gift? Would he forgive me?

Later that day, when the conversation was out of mind and he was happily at play, I asked Micah to draw Chompy for me. He was agreeable and dispatched two sketches at once. He paced for a little bit, then plopped onto the floor and drew another one, pressing down hard with his crayons.

Yup, the little bugger had definitely inherited my artsy side.

Upon viewing these, I decided Micah could sleep in our bed for a few days. This mollified him somewhat, but he kept pleading with me that we had to leave food out for Chompy. He couldn’t articulate his exact fears but after listening to all his bargaining, my impression was that he feared Chompy’s behavior would escalate as he grew hungrier.

My husband and I tried to brainstorm some ideas to help dispel the intense grip Chompy held on my son’s powerful imagination. We offered to set up a camera in Micah’s room to prove Chompy was not foraging for food at night. Micah shot down this idea immediately.

“Only I can see Chompy.”

Then we thought, maybe we have to play into the strengths of Micah’s imagination and offer something more magical or whimsical.

“Micah!” I called him over that afternoon with enthusiasm. “I have been doing some research and I found out a way to get rid of Chompy.”

He looked cautiously interested.

“You have to leave rocks out to eat. When it tries to eat the rocks, it will crack its teeth and it’ll go away.”

A hint of smile played about his lips.

“Wanna gather rocks with me?”

The smile spread to his eyes. We spent the rest of a gorgeous day near a creek in our local park, collecting smoothed stones. We skipped a few and saved only the ones that looked especially delicious. That evening, we placed the stones in a bowl and even arranged a place setting with a napkin and some utensils near Micah’s closet. He giggled when we were done.

He fell asleep between my husband and I quickly and soundly. He seemed carefree.