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01/12/2005: "The Gribbit"
The Gribbit
by Selena Thomason, ©2003
(first published in Alien Skin Magazine, www.AlienSkinMag.com)
There is a gribbit living under my bed. I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true. I can hear him in my sleep.
At first, I didn’t hear anything. There was only an uneasy feeling, like an unspecified danger hiding just out of sight, waiting for me around the next corner.
Then the scratching started, a kind of muffled shuffling under my bed. Whenever I peered under the bed, the noise would stop suddenly – not scurry off, just stop. I’d listen and listen, but the sound wouldn’t come back. I must have imagined it I’d decide and settle back towards sleep. But then it would begin again.
It went this way for weeks. Then the scratching became whispering. I couldn’t make out the words at first. It was like hearing through a wall, barely audible, not loud enough to be understood. It made me nervous. It was worse than the scratching somehow. I couldn’t figure out why. I pulled a pillow over my head, but couldn’t cover the sound. I tried to drown it out with the radio, but no matter how loud the music was, the whispering always seemed to get through as if it was closer than anything, in my pillow somehow.
I thought this was bad until I began to understand what the gribbit was saying. I don’t know if his whispering just got loud enough for me to make out the words or if I somehow got accustomed to the language and began to understand his meaning.
Now he whispers to me in my sleep that I'm not good enough, that I'm a failure and a fraud, that I'll never amount to anything. I try not to listen, but I see the effects of his words and know that they are seeping into my mind unbidden and unwelcome. His verbal poison slowly eats away at my confidence, corroding my soul, leaving me handicapped and increasingly helpless. Before long, his whispering follows me as I go about my day. I don’t hear his whispering during the day, but I remember it, relive it no matter where I am. Then when I’m home in bed, trying to fall asleep, fresh insults and doubts come percolating up through the mattress.
I've tried to catch the gribbit so I can rid myself of this menace to my peace of mind. But he is elusive. Sometimes I think I’ve caught a glimpse of his red eyes under my bed, but when I turn the lights on he's gone.
Of course, even if I catch him, I couldn’t just throw him out onto the street. He would merely find someone else to torture. I can’t do that to someone else.
If I catch him, I’ll squash him like the malicious bug he is! I worry though that he’s too strong for me, too resilient, armored like a roach.
Unexpectedly a strange, charitable mood strikes me and I imagine making peace with the gribbit somehow. I wonder why he's so hurtful. How miserable he must be to spend all his days tearing down people piece by piece!
Then it occurs to me that maybe he had a gribbit under his bed who told him he wasn't good enough and could only succeed by dragging everyone else down to his unhappy, brooding place. Suddenly I feel sorry for him. I try to coax him out from under the bed with treats and sweet words. I tell him that despite his harsh words, I know he is at heart a good gribbit. I tell him I want to be his friend, to get to know him, to learn what happened to him that hurt him so badly. I tell him I love him and that I’m glad he came to live under my bed.
At first his whispered rants on my inferiority merely become louder and begin to include how naïve and foolish I am, how I’m a lousy judge of character, how I’m stupid and don’t know anything about anything. But I will not be deterred by a mere gribbit. I persist in my campaign to make friends with him.
He is so stunned he stops whispering. He still hasn’t come out from under the bed. But last night he started humming – a happy, almost-purr. As I fall asleep to the soothing sound, I wonder “who ever heard of a happy gribbit?” No one would ever believe such a thing.
Copyright 2003 Selena Thomason