There's a monster in my closet
There’s a monster in my closet.
I huddle beneath the sheets, small and scared and silent. If I make myself into a little ball and keep real quiet, it won't know I'm here. And if it doesn't know I'm here, it can't get me. Daddy told me so, before he went downstairs to the party with Mommy.
Daddy tried explaining that there was nothing to be afraid of. That I go in my closet all the time during the day. The little alcove in the corner of my room, painted pink like everything else, with a pretty curtain across the archway. And behind the curtain are all my lovely dresses — ones Mommy buys for me when I am good, or when she wants me to come down and sing for her friends at the parties.
I told Daddy that I know that, of course I know. I love my closet.
In the daytime.
But at night, that shadowy aperture in the corner changes. It goes from a simple archway to a small walk-in wardrobe to a dark, ominous cave mouth — cavernous jaws hiding untold horrors. Who knows what dreadful beasts might lurk in there, just waiting for their chance to crawl out and help themselves to a tasty little foal.
Mommy told me, you see. A very long time ago. She had a gala to get to, and she was all dressed up. Her friends were here to collect her, and so she bought them in to see me. They all cooed and touched my mane and said how sweet I was, and I was so happy to be the centre of attention, to be making Mommy proud. I know how how to be cute, you see. I know exactly what Mommy wants. So I batted my eyelashes and they all sighed at my big blue eyes — cornflower blue, Mommy says, when she’s in a good mood. And I asked for a bedtime story.
She tried to say no, to say that they had to leave, so I pouted a little bit and let my bottom lip wobble. Never to the point of actual tears, of course. Mommy doesn’t like tears. They’re ugly. But just enough sadness to be sweet.
And all Mommy’s friends fell over themselves to say, yes, yes, let’s be a little late. How can we refuse such a little darling?
I’m not a pegasus, but I nearly started flying when they called me that.
And Mommy smiled and said oh alright then, and I could tell she was pleased. She read me a few pages out of my favourite book — the one she likes best — Silver Silk goes to the Stylish Soiree. But before we reached the end, she snapped it shut, got to her hooves, and said that it was time for her to go.
“No, Mommy,” I said, pouting again. “Just a little more.”
But somehow pouting wasn’t cute anymore, and her face closed up faster than the book. “I said no. It’s past bedtime for little fillies like you.”
Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I cried then. I couldn’t help it. It had all been going so well. Mommy was there, just like I wanted, and all Mommy’s friends, just like she wanted. Why couldn’t we all just be happy together?
And when the tears started spilling down my cheeks, they all shuffled their hooves and excused themselves. “We’ll wait for you downstairs, Spoiled.”
And Mommy leaned in real close to me, and whispered, “See the shadows over there? There’s a monster in there. Waiting, watching. Looking for bad little fillies to gobble up. So you need to be good, Diamond Tiara.”
“But Mommy,” I sniffled, “Mommy, I am good.” Hadn’t I just been entertaining all her friends? Hadn’t I been sweet, and pretty, and cute? Just like she wanted.
Contemptuously, she pulled her hoof away from mine. “Good fillies listen to their mothers, Diamond Tiara. Good fillies do as they are told, and they go to bed on time.”
And she swept out, leaving me alone. And I huddled under the covers all night, half-hiding, half-watching that shadowed arch. Trying not to cry too loud, in case the monster heard.
And tonight, I’m still watching, still hiding. I tried to tell Daddy about it, to ask him to stay with me, just for a little longer. He tried to tell me that there was no monster, but when I didn’t believe him, he eventually just got to his hooves and walked away.
“Daddy, please!” I whimpered, and he turned back at the door.
“You’ll be fine, Diamond Tiara,” he said, and though his words were gentle his voice was hard. “If you just stay in bed, the monster can’t get you.”
“But—”
“—No buts. I need to go; there are a lot of important businessponies waiting for me downstairs. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I’m lying here quivering, quaking; shivering, shaking. I know it’s there, watching my every move, but I can’t stop the shudders.
There’s a monster in my closet.
I know it’s there. Another night, another party. The noise of the happy ponies downstairs sounds so distant and echoey that it could be in another world. I’m here, alone in the darkness, just me and the gaping jaws of the cave that haunts the corner of my bedroom.
Usually I’m better than this. Normally, I can squish the fear down — pack it all tightly together into a little ball and squash it into the pit of my stomach. And then sometimes I can sleep a little. But tonight I’m so afraid, and no matter how hard I try I can’t pack it away.
I can’t help myself, even though I know how bad it is. How bad I am.
Sliding out from underneath the covers, I silently lower myself to the floor. Always careful to keep the bed in between me and the patch of midnight in the corner of my room.
Slowly, I steal to the door and slip out. Then, once it is closed behind me, the music and the laughter downstairs are suddenly more real than my fears, and I am able to trot down the stairs, my silky pink pyjamas whispering against my legs.
It won’t be so bad down there, I try to reassure myself. I’ll put on my best performance, melt their hearts. Mommy will be pleased.
Quietly, I open the door to the living room.
Every inch is packed with ponies talking, laughing, dancing. Their eyes are bright, their teeth flash white in the dim light. Carefully, I pick my way between them, until I see Daddy.
“Daddy,” I tug on his sleeve. “Daddy, I—”
He twitches his tailored suit out of my grip. “…What?” His speech is slurred, but when he looks down at me his eyes clear. “Oh…Diamond Tiara. Bad dream?”
There’s no way I can tell him about the monster — he never believes me — so I just nod.
“Go see your mother, then.” His words are slurred. Grown-ups often get like this, after darkness. I think they are tired, from staying up so late and dancing so much.
Obediently — no one likes it if I cause a scene and linger — I turn to look for Mommy. I pick out her glamorous bouffant from across the room and quickly weave my way between a hundred different legs. As I go, I pat down my own hair and hope I don’t look too rumpled. Mentally, I rehearse my lines, remembering that I will need to pitch my voice a little higher. I’ve grown a lot this year, and Mommy doesn’t like it so much.
“Mommy?” I ask, trying to squeak a little like I did when I was younger. “I had a bad dream.” Carefully, I tilt my head so that my eyes are bigger.
Slowly, swaying a little, she turns around. I swallow and try to look appealing. I hope she lets me stay a while down here; I can’t bear the silence and the loneliness and the shadows any longer.
It all rests on the reaction of the ponies with her. If they smile and say how sweet I am, she will be pleased and will let me stay with her.
But Mommy’s friends are wobbling tonight too, like Daddy, their voices loud and artificially bright. They don’t seem to have even noticed me.
After shooting a quick glance at them, Mommy’s gaze darkens.
“You should be in your room, Diamond Tiara.”
This isn’t going according to plan. The ground seems to waver beneath my hooves and I scramble for purchase. “I know, Mommy, and I’m really sorry. But I had a bad dre—”
She lurches closer to me and presses her muzzle almost flush to my own. “Stop calling me that, you silly little foal.”
Her breath is sour and far too strong; I flinch backwards. “What? Mommy, I don’t understand—”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.” Her voice is high and mocking. “Like a little parrot. Stop calling me that. It’s so juvenile; a nine-year-old should be a lady in miniature, not a toddler.”
Tears spring to my eyes and my voice wobbles. “Mommy, ple—"
Her eyes narrow in disgust and she pushes me away from her. It’s just a little push, and I know that she doesn’t mean it, she’s just tired — but I’m not expecting it and I stumble and fall.
She’s already turning away. “Go back to bed.”
There’s a monster in my closet.
The moon is full tonight, and even though the sinister mare that once lurked there is gone, I feel like the shaded spot in the corner of my bedroom might well conceal her.
But I know better now than to go and wake Mommy — than to go and wake Mother, I mean. She's busy, she has important things to attend to. And I…I’m too old now, anyway. I have my cutie mark now. A sparkly tiara, studded with diamonds just like my name. I'm only nine years old, and I already have my cutie mark. I'm a prodigy, just like Mother tells her friends.
I was in a jewellery store with Mommy when I got it, you know. She was having me try on different necklaces and earrings, and when she set that little diadem on my head I felt a little tingle…and when I looked at my flank, there it was. The same crown, in perfect miniature.
Mommy — no, Mother — bought it for me straight away. It would be bad luck not to, she said. She keeps it in a locked box in her dresser, but I know it’s mine. I’m the only one who ever wears it.
Cutie marks always mean something, Miss Cheerliee says. I don’t…I don’t know what mine means. The jeweller suggested it might mean I would be good at making jewellery, but Mother scoffed and said that was ridiculous, only tradesponies and the lower classes make things.
Daddy says it means I’m destined for great things, that I’m his little princess, just like he’s always said. Nana Rich says it means the soothsayer they consulted for my name is good at his job.
But I…when I look at the little crown on my flank, I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know what it means. But at least Mother and Daddy are pleased with me again. I don’t need to be adorable and small anymore; I’m a prodigy now.
I’m better than those mewling blank-flanks at school. I know I am. Every time Mother comes swaying into my room during a party, a different crowd of ponies behind her, to tell the story of how I got my cutie mark and let them compare the real tiara to the one on my fur, she tells me that I am better. Her breath still smells funny, but I focus on the warmth of her embrace, the gentleness of her touch.
I am better than the blank-flanks — I’m a prodigy, far ahead of my age — but when Mother and her friends leave and the door slams closed behind them, I’m alone with the darkness again. And I can feel the eyes from that horrible corner, watching me.
There's a monster in my closet.
They say I'm cruel. The other colts and fillies at school. That nopony likes me. Now one of the thoughts that chases the others around my skull at night as I watch the shadows crawling in the corners is this — am I the monster in somepony's closet?
I want to change. To be better. But how can I?
I heard Mother and Daddy arguing last week. The party was over, the floor covered with discarded wine glasses and forgotten handbags, and the musicians were gone. I could hear their voices clearly. I was supposed to be sleeping, of course, but I couldn’t help leaving my room. I just wanted to listen to them talk. To be a little less alone.
“We can't go on like this. I love you, Spoiled, darling, I always have. but the drinking needs to stop. It has to stop. For Diamond Tiara's sake.”
“What do you mean?” Mother snarled. “I’m as healthy as I’ve ever been. And Diamond Tiara is thriving. She has dozens of friends, she does well in school, she had her cutie mark nearly a year before anypony else in her year. She’s exactly like I was at her age.”
Daddy’s voice dropped. “That’s what I’m afraid of, sweetheart. I see the way she looks at us. At you. She’s learning, every day.”
“Of course she is!” snapped Mother. “I pay out the nose for lessons with seven of the best tutors money can buy every single week, to make up for the teaching she gets at that bumpkin school from that illiterate flower-flanked hick. Scribble Scroll even takes the train over from Canterlot, just for her lessons! You know he was employed by Princess Celestia herself to tutor Princess Cadance?”
“You know that’s not what I mean.” But he already sounds like a stallion defeated. “I’m so busy with the shop, honey — but Diamond’s a growing girl. Maybe if you were here for her more—”
“What, while you get to live the high life minus the foal I never wanted?” Mother spits, and I flinch like I have been slapped. “Be here for her — for Celestia’s sake, what do you think I employ the nannies for?”
Clamping my hooves over my mouth to stifle my sobs, I gallop back to the solitude of my inky room. I have heard enough.
There's a monster in my closet.
I'm trying to be better, I am, I am. Mother's gone to her...health retreat, Daddy calls it when I’m in earshot. Rehab, when I'm not. She's trying to be better. I'm trying too.
But the monster in my closet, in me, is still there. Waiting. When somepony trips and falls, cruel words are still right there on the tip of my tongue. I have to bite them back.
I'm trying to be better. Now when I lie awake at night, I’m trying to rehearse the coming day at school in my head. When to smile, when to laugh. How to greet each pony I see. How to be kind, when to tease them. I’m trying to get it right.
But it's so hard. Deep down, I know that I'm still a monster, in here. On the inside. But I’m working…trying to keep the door to the closet closed, to keep my monster locked away. I don’t want to let it out anymore. I don’t want to hurt anypony any more. All the hurt I have in in my own head feels like enough.
The moon is brighter tonight, and it sends a single silvery ray spiralling through the pitch black of my bedroom to illuminate the alcove where my dresses hang. There’s a mirror in there, so that I can do my mane right, and the tremulous little moonbeam bounces off it and illuminates the pale shape of the filly on the bed. She is small, and her blue eyes are circled with purple rings. She looks…tired.
So very, very tired.
There's a monster in my closet.
But maybe it's not so much of a monster, after all.