goblin

Benjamin had never liked that stuffed animal.
It was perched on the shelf across from his bed, beady button eyes staring blankly at the opposite wall.
He didn’t even know what it was, but he knew he couldn’t trust it. His mother had told him once that it was a little goblin, stitched together by sparkly silver fairies who lived deep in the gloomy forest under the tangled weeping willow roots.
It was a goblin.
But not a bad goblin, of course. No, no, never a bad goblin. It was friendly.
Or so his mother claimed.
Benjamin didn’t find it friendly in the least. His pale eyes would meet the darker gaze of the goblin’s every night, and the goblin certainly didn’t look too pleased. It couldn’t be trusted, surely. Especially not in the murky shadows of the night.
Anyone with stitched-on limbs and small olive ears couldn’t be friendly. That’s what Benjamin decided.
Benjamin couldn’t sleep when the goblin was looking. He deemed slumber impossible in the presence of the stuffed monster.
If he closed his eyes, the goblin would, without a doubt, do something.
It couldn’t be trusted.
His mother informed Benjamin that there were many monsters worse than a stuffed goblin. There were monsters everywhere you turned, according to her.
But Benjamin begged to differ. The goblin was surely the worst.
He did not understand why his mother couldn’t just take the goblin away. Simply remove it from the shelf. After all, Benjamin was nearly eight years old. No eight-year-old boy would want a monster plushie in his bedroom.
Especially not Benjamin.
But his mother said that the goblin would do him good. She had once whispered to him, in that sickly-sweet voice, that the goblin would teach him how to handle monsters.
But Benjamin could hardly handle the goblin. And the goblin did not teach him anything but fear and insomnia. Which was a rather unhealthy combination.
Then he wondered what other monsters he’d have to face. Would they be worse than the goblin? No, no, that wasn’t possible.
No one was worse.
As Benjamin grew older, the goblin simply collected dust, grey specks settling on its green-grey excuse for fur. As though fur would make it look more trustworthy. More friendly.
But the goblin couldn’t be trusted. And it surely wasn’t friendly.
By the time he was eleven, the goblin looked as though it were from centuries ago. Sunlight had dulled its already drab color, and the thread holding on one of its button eyes had come loose, the ebony knob dangling from its furry face.
Benjamin was not about to fix it, though. He’d never touch that foul monster.
He sometimes pondered whether to just place something in front of the goblin, a picture frame, or school book, perhaps. Just to hide its disturbing face. But he couldn’t will himself to do it. Couldn’t will himself to go near the thing.
One night, an unseen force caused the goblin to topple over, its green body falling to the ground with a soft thud.
Benjamin was horrified.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do a thing.
Since when were friendly goblins capable of taking away one’s ability to function? Benjamin didn’t know.
The goblin really was a monster.
And when his mother would come and find that Benjamin had gone missing in the morning with the goblin lying on the floor, she would surely think so too.