A long time ago, when I was very young (I don’t know how young, early elementary school I believe), I did something wrong. It wasn’t something that anyone knew about, or something that was irreparable. In point of fact, I broke one of my own toys while playing outside.
I became terrified that an adult would demand to know what had happened to this toy. (This would never actually happen, this hunk of plastic was, to the eyes of an adult, utterly indistinguishable from the rest of my Battle Beasts.)
I quickly resolved that I needed a scapegoat. This couldn’t be my fault, so I’d have to lie about who was at fault. Then I wouldn’t get BLAME. I decided that a monster had broken it.
Simple, efficient. The Midnight Monster (as I dubbed it) wasn’t real and couldn’t be sad that it was blamed. No one could prove that I hadn’t seen it (I set it up as a Dragon In The Garage sort of scenario. I’d seen it on the roof of the garage when no one else was around.)
I implemented this brilliant strategy and was dismayed to note that all of the adults didn’t believe me about the Midnight Monster. They didn’t care about the toy, but they insisted that I hadn’t seen any monster on the ceiling of the garage. But I KNEW that none of them had been there. I’d looked around. So they had no proof. I was saying that I had proof, so I should have been winning these debates. From whence came their strange certainty?
I stuck to my guns, and over time I expanded the Midnight Monster defense to several other matters. Strangely I only claimed that he was there when no one else could see. Equally strangely, despite the evidence of my repeated sitings of him (and related sitings when I saw his footprints, etc, but adults didn’t believe that these hastily crafted signs actually revealed his presence) I didn’t gain any credibility on the matter.
Eventually I moved on to other excuses, which worked much better. The Midnight Monster is a harmless childish anecdote to me. Except...
At some point during one of my excuses someone asked me to describe the monster. I did so, with the relish of the very young. I remember creating the portrait in my mind. I remember doing so, consciously falsifying the memory of a nonexistent monster.
The scary part is this. I also remember the monster. I remember seeing it, just as I’d described seeing it. I have a vivid memory of seeing it looming up over the garage of my childhood home.
If I didn’t remember creating the memory, rehearsing it (as I did after the initial inquiry) and drilling it into my mind I might believe it to this day. I remember it like I remember my buddy’s faces. It is indistinguishable from the rest of my memories.
A long time ago, when I was very young (I don’t know how young, early elementary school I believe), I did something wrong. It wasn’t something that anyone knew about, or something that was irreparable. In point of fact, I broke one of my own toys while playing outside.
I became terrified that an adult would demand to know what had happened to this toy. (This would never actually happen, this hunk of plastic was, to the eyes of an adult, utterly indistinguishable from the rest of my Battle Beasts.)
I quickly resolved that I needed a scapegoat. This couldn’t be my fault, so I’d have to lie about who was at fault. Then I wouldn’t get BLAME. I decided that a monster had broken it.
Simple, efficient. The Midnight Monster (as I dubbed it) wasn’t real and couldn’t be sad that it was blamed. No one could prove that I hadn’t seen it (I set it up as a Dragon In The Garage sort of scenario. I’d seen it on the roof of the garage when no one else was around.)
I implemented this brilliant strategy and was dismayed to note that all of the adults didn’t believe me about the Midnight Monster. They didn’t care about the toy, but they insisted that I hadn’t seen any monster on the ceiling of the garage. But I KNEW that none of them had been there. I’d looked around. So they had no proof. I was saying that I had proof, so I should have been winning these debates. From whence came their strange certainty?
I stuck to my guns, and over time I expanded the Midnight Monster defense to several other matters. Strangely I only claimed that he was there when no one else could see. Equally strangely, despite the evidence of my repeated sitings of him (and related sitings when I saw his footprints, etc, but adults didn’t believe that these hastily crafted signs actually revealed his presence) I didn’t gain any credibility on the matter.
Eventually I moved on to other excuses, which worked much better. The Midnight Monster is a harmless childish anecdote to me. Except...
At some point during one of my excuses someone asked me to describe the monster. I did so, with the relish of the very young. I remember creating the portrait in my mind. I remember doing so, consciously falsifying the memory of a nonexistent monster.
The scary part is this. I also remember the monster. I remember seeing it, just as I’d described seeing it. I have a vivid memory of seeing it looming up over the garage of my childhood home.
If I didn’t remember creating the memory, rehearsing it (as I did after the initial inquiry) and drilling it into my mind I might believe it to this day. I remember it like I remember my buddy’s faces. It is indistinguishable from the rest of my memories.
That’s scarier than a monster to me.