Author’s Note –

Some days, the past arrives with a grin. Other days, it knocks on the door with a shadow at its back. This month’s stories come from those opposite corners.

The first is a warm, mischievous memory from when the world was simple, sunlight was entertainment, and a three‑year‑old boy believed a mailman could deliver anything—including a golden pony cut from the back of a comic book.

The second story steps into darker territory, where a different kind of childhood fear takes shape. It’s about a boy who learns that sometimes the monster under the bed isn’t the one you should be afraid of… and sometimes the shadows choose their own side.

Two stories. One playful, one haunting. Both true to the way childhood can surprise us—first with innocence, then with truth.

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Mail Order

Oh, what a beautiful sight “How interesting”.  Well, that is probably what I would have thought had I not been three years old, sitting on the floor of my living room, being entertained by dust particles floating in the ray of sunlight streaming through the living room window.    

Being a three year old, my thought was probably more like, ‘”WOW, that’s pretty, I wonder what it is. Can I grab it? Can I walk up to heaven on the light just like people in the pictures of my prayer book? Oh, LOOK a BUTTERFLY! Back then, my attention span was, well, it was that of a three year old!    

It was on a day, just like that day, after playing with the dust flying about in the ray of   light for over an hour, that I noticed a comic book peeking out from under the davenport. My older brother, Eddy, probably left it there so he could finish reading it later. He could read. He was a BIG boy. He was already seven years old; all I could do was look at the pictures.    

This was a “Lucy O’Ball” comic book. It would be a few years yet before I would   understand that her name was really Lucille Ball, but as a kid of three, it really didn’t matter to me, or to anyone else. After all, I knew who she was!    

What attracted me to the comic book wasn’t Lucy’s whacky antics described so elegantly in the colorful panels on page after page. It was the back cover of the comic book that intrigued    

The back cover was simply inked in black and white. No expense was spared there, but it caught my young eye. In the middle of the back cover was a fully saddled pony with a flowing mane and a long, bushy tail. Even thought the back cover was simply illustrated, in black and white, I instantly knew this pony was a golden blonde pony with a mane and tail of pure white.  The saddle was midnight black with a lustery shine that could blind someone in the cloudless midday sun. There were highly polished silver studs as a border around the saddle and stirrups. I instantly fell in love with this pony.    

Now, a three year old doesn’t know much about love. Let’s see, I loved my mommy and my daddy, and I loved by brother and sister, (but only on alternating days). Oh, and I just LOVED meat loaf and fruit salad, Yep, I think that about coved it! I liked a lot of other things such as my teddy bear, Toby, and my numerous aunts, oh, and sand. I liked sand a lot! The sand in my yard tasted better than the sand out at Grandpa and Grandma’s house, but hey, a three year old does not have very well developed taste buds.    

Yes, I loved that pony; it was love at first sight. I knew I had to have it! I knew just how to get it too. I may have been young, but I was very observant. I had watched my mother, numerous times, as she had sent away for items. “Mail Order’ she called them. She simply dropped a card in the mail box up the street and later, in two or three weeks or so, her, ‘”Mail Order” would arrive I only had to do the same,    

When no one was looking, I cop’t a pair of scissors from mom’s sewing basket and I cut out the picture of “my” pony. I knew I ruined the cover of the comic book by doing so. I had to get rid of the evidence. I shoved the book under my sister Patty’s bed. (She never cleaned there anyway.) I knew my secret was safe. NO one would ever find it there.    

I had my pony cut out. I did what mom did with her “mail order” I simply stuck it in the creases of the little pick-up and delivery schedule posted on the front of the mail box on the street. I then went home to joyfully await delivery of “Hobby” (yes, I had named it already!) “‘Hobby-Horse” was to be its name. (Remember, I was only three years old with not much of an imagination,)    

That night, and for days and weeks to come, I thought of my pal, Hobby. He was more than a pony. He was my pal. Every time the song, “Happy Wanderer” played on the radio, my mind would wander also. I wandered Off, riding my pony. I was Off to the hills and valleys I saw on ‘”The Lone Ranger” television show when visiting my grandparents, (We would not get our own T. V. for another two or three years.)    

For months I waited for the mailman to arrive with my pony. He would arrive, smile, pat my head, and hand mom the mail. No Hobby for me! I finally decided that I missed the most important item when sticking my mail order to the mail box. Mom mentioned something once about needing a thing called a stamp. (This was a new word to me.) Seems the mailman won’t deliver mail without this “stampy” thingy.  

By the time I came to the realization regarding the stamp business, I was losing interest in the pony anyway.

I now had a NEW love . . . a TUBA!!!

I saw that in the Sears Christmas Wish Book. Aw, but that is a story for another time.

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Author’s Note –

Before you step into the next story, take a breath. Mail Order comes from the bright side of childhood—the years when wonder was easy, the world was small, and even a cut‑out pony seemed just a postage stamp away from becoming real.

The story that follows walks into a different kind of childhood memory. The light dims, the room grows quieter, and the shadows stretch a little longer. But just like in real life, innocence and darkness often lived side by side, shaping us in ways we didn’t understand until much later.

Two stories. Two young boys. Two opposite truths.

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Monster Under the Bed

Childhood has two kinds of nights.

The ones lit by imagination — where shadows become adventures and the world feels safe as long as Mom is close. And then there are the other nights.

The ones when the house goes quiet, the walls grow thin, and a child learns that some dangers don’t hide under the bed at all.

Monster Under the Bed begins in that fragile space between fear and truth. It’s a story about a little boy who senses what the adults around him cannot — and about the presence in the shadows that chooses to protect him when no one else will.

This isn’t a tale of fangs or claws. It’s a tale of the kind of monster every child wishes they had when the real world turns cruel.

Long ago, in a drafty two-room cold-water flat where winter crept in through the warped window frames like an unwelcome guest, a little boy named Kenny lived with his mother. Life was simple in that place—no hot water, no heat unless Mom coaxed a flame from the stubborn burner on their tiny stove. Bath time meant a metal washtub, steam curling in the air like a ghost that hadn’t made up its mind about staying.

But Kenny didn’t mind. As long as Mom was there—always Mom, never Ma or Mother—he felt safe.

Well… almost safe.

For as far back as he could remember, Kenny believed something lived under his bed. Not the kind of cartoon monster that smiles with too many teeth. This one breathed. Shifted. Waited. On nights when sleep drifted just out of reach, Kenny would swear he saw long, patient shadows stretching from under the bed frame like fingers.

He’d cry out, and Mom would hold him tight, her warmth pushing the darkness back. Eventually he’d fall asleep in her bed, curled against her heartbeat, while the thing beneath his own bed settled back into its watchfulness.

By three, he convinced himself the monster had left… or maybe simply lost interest. Children talk themselves into courage that way. Life in the cramped apartment wasn’t much, but it felt like a little island of safety in a world that didn’t offer many.

Then Mom introduced Jake.

She said Jake had a nice house—a house with real heat, real beds, and a room just for Kenny. But from the moment Jake smiled at him, Kenny felt the air shift in a way that was hard to explain. Five-year-olds don’t have words for predator or possession, but their bones know enough to twitch.

Jake’s hands never left Mom’s shoulders. His eyes flicked at Kenny with the hunger of someone measuring what they could take from you… or what stood in their way.

Mom didn’t notice. Love—or the hope of it—can blind grown-ups worse than darkness ever blinds a child.

After the wedding, life in Jake’s house turned colder than the flat had ever been. The rooms were bigger, yes, but the shadows were longer too, as if they’d been waiting there for years. Kenny had his own room now, his own big bed, but none of it felt like home. Jake worked from his cramped home office and watched Mom with a vigilance that felt like a trap snapping shut.

He ignored Kenny unless it was to complain, to sneer, or to punish. Mom whispered that it was “Jake’s house, Jake’s rules,” as if a rulebook could explain a bruise.

Kenny heard everything. The late-night arguments. The muffled sobs. The wet thud of a slap. Sometimes the wall shook, and the shadows in his room trembled with it.

One night, as Kenny lay shaking beneath his covers, something beneath his bed shifted. Not threatening—more like a calm breath, steady and ancient. For the first time, Kenny didn’t feel afraid.

He felt… understood.

That’s when he had an idea. If he cried out like he did back when the monster frightened him, maybe Mom could escape Jake’s rage—just for a moment. A small mercy. A borrowed breath.

And it worked. For a while.

Until the night Jake’s rage burned so hot it illuminated everything in the house, even the corners where the shadows usually kept their counsel.

Kenny heard something crash. Heard Mom cry out. He yelled for her—louder than ever.

Jake roared: “If you go in there, you better shut that brat up once and for all, or I will!”

Kenny’s voice hit a pitch only children and ghosts can find.

Silence followed.

Then the door burst open so violently the knob punched straight through the plaster. But it wasn’t Mom standing there.

Jake filled the doorway like a bad dream that finally decided to stop being subtle. His eyes bulged. His breath came in sharp snorts. His belt hung from his fist like a serpent waiting for the strike.

Kenny froze, but the air beneath the bed grew still—patient. Like something holding its breath.

Kenny pointed downward with one shaking finger.
Then he whispered, “Shhh… monster… shhh.”

Jake snarled. “Enough of your nonsense! Time to end this!” He cracked the belt against the footboard, splitting wood and spraying splinters like startled birds.

But Kenny stayed committed. “Shhh,” he whispered again, softer, as if he were soothing a wild thing.

Jake laughed—a sound without humor, without humanity. “All right then. Let’s see your monster.” He dropped to his knees and crawled forward, sneer in place, ready to declare the darkness empty.

He never got the words out.

The moment his shoulders vanished beneath the bedframe, the room exhaled. A low, ancient growl rose—not loud, not dramatic… but full. Like something old stretching after a long sleep.

Then came the scream.

It wasn’t human. Or maybe it was too human—raw, panic-strangled, every ounce of cruelty reversed into terror. The bed shook violently, lifting off the floor as if held by something strong and unseen. Jake’s voice rose, broke, stuttered:

“Mon—Monster! It’s REAL! IT’S REA—”

The bed crashed back to the floor, rattling the glass in the windows.

Silence reigned.

The shadows beneath the bed settled back into place as gently as closing eyelids.

Kenny relaxed, letting his small body sink into the mattress. He drew his blanket up to his chin, the faintest, satisfied smile curling across his face—not wicked, just relieved. Protectively relieved.

Because Kenny hadn’t outgrown the monster.

He’d been befriended by something that had always watched, always waited, always understood.

And the true monster in the house—
well, he wouldn’t be coming back.

Not tonight.

Not ever.

On one side, the boy who believed a paper pony could gallop into his life. On the other, the boy who learned to read the shadows.

Two childhoods. Two truths.

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Authors Note –

Thank you for walking with me through these two very different corners of childhood. One story came wrapped in sunlight with dust motes floating in the sun shafts, and the unshakable belief that the mailman could deliver a golden pony. The other stepped into the darker rooms we sometimes grow up in, where shadows stretch long and protection comes from unexpected places.

Both memories shaped the boys forever — and the “pony boy” is the man who now shares these stories with you. The other, well… he was born out of my imagination and from the stories whispered on the streets as I grew up.

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