A Monster Calls

Stories are the wildest things of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt.

There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere inbetween.

Stories are important, the monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.

Stories were wild, wild animals and went off in directions you couldn’t expect.

You do not write your life with words, the monster said. You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.

“You be as angry as you need to be,” she said. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Not your grandma, not your dad, no one. And if you need to break things, then by God, you break them good and hard.”

Conor held tightly onto his mother.

And by doing so, he could finally let her go.

He leaned forward onto her bed and put his arm around her.

Holding her.

He knew it would come, and soon, maybe even this 12:07. The moment she would slip from his grasp, no matter how tightly he held on.

“I don’t want you to go,” he said again.

And that was all he needed to say.

“I don’t want you to go,”