Hiding Under The Bed

By Robin Mohilner

October 28, 2002

I used to hide in the mysterious dark of hidden treasures with all of the monsters that haunted my dreams.  I was determined to face the monsters in the daylight, by hiding with them under my bed.  One day I hid under my bed for three hours.  I didn’t find any monsters.  But I did find toys that were once loved that had gone forgotten.  I found the missing Legos and Barbie doll heads.  I found the food that I spilled in the crack between the bed and the wall.  Of course I was surrounded by all of the dirty socks and underwear that I threw under the bed…I liked to use those as puppets when I hid.  My mom tried to convince me that my dirty clothes became monsters at night so that I would clean my room.  I decided to prove her wrong by leaving all of my dirty clothes all over the room.  Yeah, I showed her, I stopped believing in monsters after that one.

She wasn’t very happy about that and that’s why I was hiding under the bed for so long.  She got so mad at me for throwing my dirty clothes around the room that she yelled at me in a way I was not accustomed.  She used words like “shit” and “God damn it what the hell is wrong with you.”  She did not care about me overcoming the monsters. But she did make me feel so sad.  I felt as though she didn’t love me anymore.  So when she punished me to stay in my room for an hour with no toys I decided that I was going to run away.  I was a smart six year old, I thought of the consequences of running away.  I didn’t run away for two reasons: I didn’t have a stick and I didn’t have a red and white pocka-dot cloth to wrap my clothes in.  I made the decision to pretend to run away.  That is how I decided to hide under my bed.

I hid under my bed for a long time waiting for my mother to worry and panic.  I wanted her to feel bad for yelling at me.  In reality I needed to know that she still loved me.  She never came looking for me.  Three hours went by and she never once called for me.  Then I suddenly heard the front door slam shut.  She left the house.  She forgot about me.  I went running out from under my bed, but she was gone.  I was home alone for two hours (really 30 minutes) crying.  All I wanted to know was that my mom still loved me even though she was mad at me.  What I believed was that she didn’t care and had forgotten about me.  When my mom returned home I broke out in uncontrollable tears crying, “You don’t love me anymore!”  She took me in her arms and said, “Robin, I will always love you.  My little girl, I was working in the yard.”  I asked her why she didn’t come searching for me.  She said, “I know you…I knew you were playing under the bed.  I knew that it would be a lot smarter to let you come out when you get tired of hiding, than to go under there with you and try to drag you out.