Memory Foam

“There’s monsters under my bed!” Jimmy screamed throwing himself between his startled parents. Mommy wrapped him up while Daddy offered assurances that monsters weren’t real. Jimmy pleaded with him to go make sure so he pulled himself up and plodded down the hall. All was well until they heard a loud thumping noise followed by silence. Jimmy’s mother decided to check on her husband, leaving Jimmy alone in the dark. Jimmy heard the creaks of the floor and another loud thump; then silence. Jimmy lay there, hoping that his imagination was just running wild. He decided to go and find out what was going on. Tiptoeing his way around the creaking floorboards he peeked in through the keyhole to see his mother wiping the floor and his father leaned over his bed. Jimmy opened the door slowly. His mother hopped up, hiding her hands behind her back.

“Sorry ,” she said to him gently. “Your father slipped on a toy and tore your bed. He’s sewing it back up and I’m just cleaning up.” His dad finished and walked over to him. “Why don’t you sleep with us tonight champ?” he said, as he picked him up. Jimmy fell asleep easily, safely tucked between his parents.

Jimmy’s parents seemed odd the next day. After dinner they put him to bed without a word. He realized that his bed felt very lumpy and wondered if his father had re-sewn it incorrectly. He went to find his parents, but the door was locked. He banged on it, but eventually made his way back to his lumpy bed and fell asleep. He questioned his parents the next morning about the bed and the door and his father sternly replied that he was too old to be afraid of monsters and they would be locking him in his room at night until he had gotten over it. That night was cold, and sleep did not come quickly. Laying under his blanket he noticed that even with the fan blowing, something was beginning to smell. He tried to ignore it, but ended up sleeping on the floor.

He convinced his parents to check his bed the following morning, but they found no smell or strange lumps. For lying, his father locked Jimmy in his room for the day. Time passed slowly and by late afternoon Jimmy was nauseous with hunger, made worse by the potent smell coming from his bed in the afternoon heat. Determined to find the smell, he cut open the line of stitching his father had sewn. There, surrounded by stuffing, were the decaying but recognizable, bodies of his parents. He began to scream at the sight of their rotting skin. He kept screaming until a knock came on the door.

“Jimmy? Are you okay?” Came his mother’s voice, then his father’s, “Remember Jimmy, there are no monsters under the bed.”