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sessifetThere are certain hard rules, certain immutable laws in life. You will never have enough socks. You will run out of milk faster than you're drinking it. Random kitchen equipment will appear in your house without you going through the intermediate step of buying it, yet you can never find a whisk when you most need one. Cats will always demand to sit on your lap at the most awkward time. Some books and films are genius works of art that make the world a better place for existing, yet you're glad you never have to read or watch them ever again.
You can't look out of your kitchen or bathroom window in the night for fear of something looking back at you.
You can't dangle a foot over the edge of your bed and leave it like that. Don't believe me? Try it. Tonight, when you go to bed, stick your foot out just over the edge of the bed. Leave it covered if you like (cold feet are never conducive to sleep) and try to go to sleep. You won't be able to. Your foot will feel more and more exposed the longer you leave it dangling like that. You will start to feel like something is watching you and your foot. There's something there and it's going to grab your foot and you need to pull your foot up and onto the safety of the bed right now!
This is not a silly holdover from childhood, where monsters would eat you if you weren't completely cocooned in your blanket by the time your parents switched the light off. This is not a sign of some weird foot-related phobia*, either. Rather, it is a learned response.
You see, something does live under your bed.
And it comes out after dark.
Imagine if you will, a weasel. Or a ferret. Even a stoat. A small-ish creature of the mustelid persuasion. Something which has that curiously boneless, sinuous way of moving.**. Imagine large eyes (they have to see in the dark, after all) and large whiskers (for navigating in the dark under the bed where even large eyes don't help). They have small hands with which they grab their target to hold it while they eat (much like otters do).
These are the carpet sharks. Every house has a population of them and before the rise of electricity and nightlights, they used to keep the monsters in the dark under control. They're small, but there's a lot of them and they would mob any creature foolish enough to show its face or even look like it was contemplating crawling out from wherever it was lurking.
These days, of course, there are no more really large monsters in the dark. Houses have become too easily lit. Overall, the world has become too light for large monsters to exist in the numbers of the past. They have been pushed to the edges of the world where they sulk and mutter darkly about how one day the lights will go out and then we'll see who's really in charge here, won't we? Why, when granddad was alive and so on and so forth.
Still, the carpet sharks have remained. Living in a house with no monsters means fewer of them are lost to predation and you can make a really good living off dust bunnies and smaller house monsters (where did you think those odd socks go?). And so they've become so successful that they're starting to come out during the day as well. You know those odd noises that you sometimes hear when the house is quiet? A particularly enthusiastic carpet shark after a house monster or dust bunny. Your cat staring at absolutely nothing? She's probably just spotted a juvenile carpet shark which has long since camouflaged itself and scampered off. It's probably on top of a bookcase chuckling to itself.
Having a healthy population of carpet sharks in your house is generally speaking a good thing. They keep the population of sock stealing monsters down and patrol your bedroom at night, scaring off unwanted ghosts and stray nightmares and remaining ever vigilant for the return of a large monster in the dark.
Unfortunately, carpet sharks have one weakness. They love feet and if you leave yours dangling over the edge of the bed, it will distract them terribly from their self-imposed duties. They will all gather together and stare at it until, eventually, one brave soul will come up and nose at your toes to determine edibility. If the foot doesn't move, it will continue to nose around and eventually grab hold of a toe. This is usually enough to startle you awake and then blame either the cat or the other half and thus far, you've always woken up in time to prevent worse.
But one night, you might not...
*You really only start to develop one of those after you've woken up with a Rottweiler contemplatively sucking on your foot.
** So not a wolverine. Wolverines stomp.
You can't look out of your kitchen or bathroom window in the night for fear of something looking back at you.
You can't dangle a foot over the edge of your bed and leave it like that. Don't believe me? Try it. Tonight, when you go to bed, stick your foot out just over the edge of the bed. Leave it covered if you like (cold feet are never conducive to sleep) and try to go to sleep. You won't be able to. Your foot will feel more and more exposed the longer you leave it dangling like that. You will start to feel like something is watching you and your foot. There's something there and it's going to grab your foot and you need to pull your foot up and onto the safety of the bed right now!
This is not a silly holdover from childhood, where monsters would eat you if you weren't completely cocooned in your blanket by the time your parents switched the light off. This is not a sign of some weird foot-related phobia*, either. Rather, it is a learned response.
You see, something does live under your bed.
And it comes out after dark.
Imagine if you will, a weasel. Or a ferret. Even a stoat. A small-ish creature of the mustelid persuasion. Something which has that curiously boneless, sinuous way of moving.**. Imagine large eyes (they have to see in the dark, after all) and large whiskers (for navigating in the dark under the bed where even large eyes don't help). They have small hands with which they grab their target to hold it while they eat (much like otters do).
These are the carpet sharks. Every house has a population of them and before the rise of electricity and nightlights, they used to keep the monsters in the dark under control. They're small, but there's a lot of them and they would mob any creature foolish enough to show its face or even look like it was contemplating crawling out from wherever it was lurking.
These days, of course, there are no more really large monsters in the dark. Houses have become too easily lit. Overall, the world has become too light for large monsters to exist in the numbers of the past. They have been pushed to the edges of the world where they sulk and mutter darkly about how one day the lights will go out and then we'll see who's really in charge here, won't we? Why, when granddad was alive and so on and so forth.
Still, the carpet sharks have remained. Living in a house with no monsters means fewer of them are lost to predation and you can make a really good living off dust bunnies and smaller house monsters (where did you think those odd socks go?). And so they've become so successful that they're starting to come out during the day as well. You know those odd noises that you sometimes hear when the house is quiet? A particularly enthusiastic carpet shark after a house monster or dust bunny. Your cat staring at absolutely nothing? She's probably just spotted a juvenile carpet shark which has long since camouflaged itself and scampered off. It's probably on top of a bookcase chuckling to itself.
Having a healthy population of carpet sharks in your house is generally speaking a good thing. They keep the population of sock stealing monsters down and patrol your bedroom at night, scaring off unwanted ghosts and stray nightmares and remaining ever vigilant for the return of a large monster in the dark.
Unfortunately, carpet sharks have one weakness. They love feet and if you leave yours dangling over the edge of the bed, it will distract them terribly from their self-imposed duties. They will all gather together and stare at it until, eventually, one brave soul will come up and nose at your toes to determine edibility. If the foot doesn't move, it will continue to nose around and eventually grab hold of a toe. This is usually enough to startle you awake and then blame either the cat or the other half and thus far, you've always woken up in time to prevent worse.
But one night, you might not...
*You really only start to develop one of those after you've woken up with a Rottweiler contemplatively sucking on your foot.
** So not a wolverine. Wolverines stomp.
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argh
Date: 2012-10-05 07:59 am (UTC)Re: argh
Date: 2012-10-05 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 09:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 09:04 am (UTC)I can, mostly because single beds are too damn short so I've spent more than a few nights in my life with my feet hanging over the edge of the bed because they just didn't fit.
The carpet sharks probably put a secret mark on them that means "Not edible, avoid!" because I've never had a problem other than cold feet. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 09:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 11:54 am (UTC)Or tights, because no matter how pairs you own, the first five you pick out of the drawer will always have ladders
Some books and films are genius works of art that make the world a better place for existing, yet you're glad you never have to read or watch them ever again
Schindler's List is one of these. Gripping and terrifying and moving, however I would rather leave the room than watch it again
no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 01:46 pm (UTC)