The Book

I found a book I hadn't read since I was six years old today: The Monster at the End of This Book: Starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover.

I was fucking terrified of this book when I was six. The first time I read it, every single page warned me of the direst of dire consequences if I kept turning pages, yet my mom was there to make sure I did (sometimes she turned them for me and, oh god, was I scared the monster would eat her). Grover erected brick walls and we just crashed right through them, through the fourth wall itself.

Of course, the whole ending was a rip. The monster turns out to be Grover himself, making the lessen learned: "Hey, kids, there's nothing to be afraid of! All monsters are actually furry, lovable muppets!"

Needless to say, my six-year-old self was pissed with this revelation. He was expecting something with rows and rows of fangs, something snarling and vicious, something with blood-red eyes and dripping gore. Something that would make my six-year-old self shit his pants.

Instead, he got the same Grover as the rest of the book. My six-year-old self did not take kindly to this bait-and-switch, so he retrieved his black crayon from the box and crayoned over the last page. Instead of Grover being the monster at the end of the book, it was instead a black, waxy wasteland.

I found the book today and turned to the last page. There was the blackened page, bits of crayon falling off like ash. This was the book of my childhood. Someone had found it through the detritus of my past and then placed it in a house without doors and left it for me to find.

Somehow, I doubt when I find this person, it will turn out to be just lovable, furry old Grover.