Thepoplicks

Thepoplicks - it's a name that rarely brings up any imagery of horror or distress, indeed to most the name does not bring up any particular emotion at all.

Yet for a small number of people Thepoplicks is a word that brings fear, the chill of a childhood memory shunned by the "rational" adult mind - we are taught at an early age not to believe in monsters, society mocks those who cling to such superstitions and as the march of science and technology continues we are conditioned as a species to forget the "fairy tales" of our ancestors.

Thepoplicks is thus simply another name for the bogeyman, yet there is frightening similarities that run across every person who remembers the name - distant memories of a strange shadow on the wall or the sound of raspy breathing, the smell of rotten eggs and even the feeling of long fingers stroking over the bedsheets of a frightened child, who close their eyes before they catch a glimpse of the creature.

Then in the darkness the words are spoken that ring in their minds even in adulthood, words that make no sense yet haunt them at night when the judging ways of the modern world can no longer reach them:

"Thepoplicks watches as you sleep.. Thepoplicks hears you as you weep.. where does Thepoplicks go?.. you'll never know.."

Every person who remembers the name remembers the same nonsensical line - whispered in the dead of night, none of them dared to open their eyes as the sensation of piercing eyes hung over their small forms, the raspy breathing fading as the smell of rotten eggs faded.. the long fingers ceasing to stroke at the sheets.. only then did they dare to open their eyes.

These people come to me with time, often by the time they do they have begun to slowly lose control as their troubled memories - real or imagined - cause them to break into tears, I comfort them as I can but often it is best to let them be.

Some times after they cry they fall into a sleep, perhaps to try and shut away the horrors their minds have created - the poor souls most likely believe themselves mad but I do not judge them.

No, I simply watch them as they sleep, listen as they weep.. then I leave them be.. where I go.. they'll never know.