Scary Monsters from My Childhood
Stories of ancient mythical creatures have, for a long time, been used across societies to offer valuable lessons and preserve culture. In a sense, stories of scary monsters have acted as a source of valuable life lessons, especially among children. One such mythical creature is the bogeyman. The bogeyman is depicted as a creature who lurks in dark shadows of the night and who mainly targets children who are disobedient to their parents (Geller). The terrifying mythical monster, generally described as having long claws and haunting eyes, was used to scare children who walked alone in the dark or those who did not listen to their parent’s advice. Other mythical creatures used to scare children are vampires, who are portrayed as bloodthirsty monsters that walk at night and feed on human blood. Despite mythical creatures being scary, their stories can be used to shape the behaviors of children.
Everybody has a fear of something. Personally, my fear of the dark becomes imminent whenever I have to sleep alone in my room. Every night when I turn off the lights and look at the window directly opposite my bed, a dark image with a humanoid shape starts to form against the curtains. The spooky shape’s outline becomes more explicit in the dark since the window to my room is illuminated against a nearby street lamp. One night, when it was rainy and windy outside, the image continuously transitioned into the shape of a woman wearing a veil. What was more frightening was how fast she kept moving closer to the window and further away as if to synchronize into the wind’s rhythm. The night only got worse. As the rain and wind intensity increased, the mysterious woman in the veil began scratching on the windowpanes as if she intentionally wanted to break them. When the lightning struck, I saw images of flying insects, which I initially thought were bats. Since it was dark in my room and the lightning only occurred a few times, I had the feeling that some of the insects had entered my room, and the creepy woman wanted to reach in and get them. The thunder and the wind only made things worse as I felt like the insects were flying right above me and making strange noises. The fear I had developed was overwhelming, which made me scream out loud, making my parents come into my room. When they turned on the lights, it turned out the creepy image was a shadow of the tree just outside my room and the imaginary insects were its leaves being blown away by the strong winds.
Works Cited
Geller. “Bogeyman.” Mythology, 8 July 2018. https://mythology.net/mythical-creatures/bogeyman/ [Accessed 21 October 2020]
