by Brad Foster (2021 ©)
There is a monster in the house. It surrounds me, and its gibbering mass spews from closets and creeps amongst the countertops. It lurks in the dark, waiting to trip me up. It looms over me in the shadows and leers at me during the daylight. It must be some otherworldly horror, though I know this eldritch colossus is of my own summoning. It infests every corner of the house — as above, so below. I’ve battled this terror for years but I fear it will prevail in its relentlessness. The clutter knows no limits and grows ever stronger. The scant strength I can sometimes marshall soon fails before the immensity of it all, and I retreat into a dwindling space of comfort.
It’s grown sentient and growls “More! More stuff, GET MORE STUFF!!”
The Cyclopean heaps always tower over my entire life — dishes, laundry, and the stuff, the neverending stuff — too much fucking STUFF!!!
When I try to get rid of something, the unnatural terror natters in my mind, driving me insane:
“You can’t get rid of it, what if you need it someday?
Or, “That was a gift, how dare you even consider throwing it away or donating it — you monster!”
Then, finally: “You can never defeat me, I am far too powerful. Just put that thing down, somewhere, anywhere — it doesn’t matter where…”
And that is how it feeds itself — a combination of my own hopelessness mixed with apathy.
