Closet

He was right. There was something sinister in the closet. It was dark in there, the light never turned on. He hadn’t the heart to step inside and change the bulb. He couldn’t see past the pair of jeans snaking out there legs from inside, languishing on the floor with a deep malice, threatening to wrap any fool who tread too close. There were horrible things in there. Things which he had thrown away carelessly long ago, strewing them on the floor as if they were pieces of clothes. They were more in every which way. And when the closet light went out...he knew he had done wrong. Sometimes, at night, he would hear creeping whispers, gently squeaking the floorboards as they came to hiss in his ears. They would envelope him and twirl around his mind as ghosts, making him squirm as they polluted his air. Clawing at his face, he would contort in his bed, arms lashing out, he was suffocating, they were stealing, taking it all! And then, the horrid apparitions would disappear and he would fall suddenly into his dreams, always of evergreen forests, bright green and swimming through a sea of fragrant air, inhabited by thousands of elves. And he, he was the hero of the elves. He was their champion. He had a mind all his own, and he danced wherever the daylight threatened to recede from the forest and drove the night away. They loved him, they feasted him, they danced with him. Their daughters adored him, their sons wished to follow in his stead. Why, it was even a feat for a young boy to touch his axe! They would rush home and breathlessly share their sudden brush with celebrity with their compatriots, that boy holding his head high for weeks on. The fathers spoke to him at every turn, taking him into their home whenever they could, simply hoping their humble name could be raised by him calling them friend. Despite the constant ejaculation of love at every street corner, the fame began to wear thin. The hero was dying. He could no longer dance, his song was fading into the sweet air and holding naught at bay. Light began to recede from the forest, black uncertainty settling onto the once clear world. The evergreens began to weep darkened needles, swaying gently in the breeze before they peopled the ground with Death. The elves were horrified. They wanted it to end, they wanted him to survive. They prayed for his health, propped up his feet at night, worked water over his brow. Thousands of kisses from blushing maids, hoping to make the sad warrior once again sing! But, every day, as the soft light painted his cheeks a glistening golden brown, he would kneel on one knee, his sword propped up, point in the ground out in front of him. His face would hang, and it seemed that evergreens would bend towards him, towards that blackened ground, and the very dirt beneath the hero’s very feet weighed to the Core of the world as it seemed he would fall into the fiery depths at once.
He would awake then, leap from his bed in fright, and stare in shock at the gaping closet, so insidiously reaching out to caress naked flesh and wrap him with its black arms. It was sinister. It was evil. And he needed to destroy it.