Living With a Shoulder Monster
By Eugie Foster

rengle crouched on Jerry's shoulder, oozing spite and malign displeasure into the sleeping man's ear.  "Your life has been wasted," it whispered.

The man opened his eyes and rubbed his shoulder.  The tiny monster scuttled sideways, the tips of its wings flicking away from his rummaging hand. 

Jerry hated nights like these when his eyes refused to stay closed and his mind hissed and popped like white static on the television.  When he had been younger, in college, he hadn't minded when sleep eluded him--his eyes burning with a fervid alertness and his mind abuzz with grandiose thoughts.  But now, when college had long ago become a faint memory--misty faces and half-remembered achievements--the virtues of insomnia were less apparent.

Cecily's long, chestnut hair spread over her pillow in a cascade of waves beside him.  Jerry loved the smell and feel of his wife's hair, the strands both sharp and silken over his skin.  There were lines of gray in it now.  He couldn't see them in the early-morning darkness, but he knew they were there. 

"Your life's been wasted," Grengle whispered.  

Jerry closed his eyes, listening to his heartbeat as he tried to wrap sleep around him like a comforting blanket.  Memories chased through his mind like manic squirrels.

He missed music, missed it in all its myriad incarnations--listening with shut eyes in his darkened bedroom with headphones like a lover's hands cupping his ears; at home after school, the throaty voice of his six-string cajoling his muse to life; working at the local burger fry, chords and melodies twined around fantasies of buying that shiny, new, electric piano in the jazz store window.  The plan was to tour the country after college: see the sights, meet new people, and create masterpieces of music out of the rich tapestry of experiences he was certain to encounter. 

That had been the plan. 

At first, it hadn't seemed like such hardship to sacrifice his dreams for Cecily, for their life together.  But now, now he was old.  His hair was thin, his body soft and flabby, and the music no longer trilled and thrummed through his head. 

Jerry sat up.  Grengle squealed; short legs pinwheeled as it tumbled off its perch, rolling and flailing in a jumble of limbs and wings. 

Jerry glanced at the pile of screeching monster in his lap.  Leather wings drooped before flipping closed against a round, furred and scaled body.  A bulbous nose slanted up and beady red eyes rose to meet Jerry's in the near-darkness.

"Serves you right," Jerry said.

"Life's been wasted," Grengle grumbled.

"So you say.  What do I have to do to make you shut up so I can get some sleep?"

Grengle's red eyes flickered.  A brown gobbet of drool plopped from the creature's mouth and fell onto the maroon comforter.

"You should chase them," it said.  "Chasing your dreams."  Grengle's voice was raspy and uneven, more suited to whispered intimations than conversation.

"So you're letting me get a few words in?"  How long ago had it started?  A shadow here, a whisper there.  This was the first time since he'd begun to hear and see the Lilliputian goblin that it had answered him back. 

"Chase dreams!"

Jerry leaned against the bed's wooden headboard.  "I don't know what those dreams are anymore." 

"Quit job, then off to chase."  Grengle pulled its way up Jerry's chest, digging its claws into Jerry's pajamas in a floundering shamble.

"I can't.  Cecily doesn't make enough to support us."

"Worth it?  Loving her worth it?"  Grengle pointed a jagged wing at his wife's sleeping form.

She rolled, a slender arm outflung as she pulled the warmth of the sheet and comforter off Jerry to gather around her shoulders.  

Grengle plunked itself onto its customary spot beside Jerry's ear.  "Find out, mortal man.  Find out."

"How?"

Grengle cackled and hopped from one foot to the other.  "Go away, run away.  No more slaving for her; no more sacrificing.  Your turn to dream now.  Your turn to live, yes?"

Jerry brushed away the ugly goblin and watched it plummet to the comforter.  "I can't do that.  I love her."

It recovered, tattered wings outstretched and churning.  A scowl twisted its features.  "Love is not enough.  Love is not happiness.  Not too late.  Run, run.  Start a band, maybe?"

Jerry laughed.  "And get a cherry-red convertible and a barely-legal mistress too, is that it?"

"Not too late yet, but soon will be.  Eyes fade.  Back aches.  Death creeps at your door before you know living."

The laugh fell away.  "I know."

He surveyed the dim shapes of their bedroom.  There was Cecily's dresser, overflowing with crumpled tights, their legs flung askew.  And there, the tan and brown curtains they had talked endlessly about replacing but never had.  And the avalanche of bric-a-brac that littered the tops of their nightstands--paperback novels, picked up once and then forever put down; the pair of his and her mismatched lamps; the glitter of glass over darkened pictures, faces obscured in the twilight gloom.

Familiar walls, familiar room, familiar bed. 

Jerry put Grengle on his cluttered nightstand, wedging it between the alarm clock and a dusty box of tissues.  "I love my wife."

"Love is not enough."

"It counts." 

Jerry leaned to his wife.  "Cecily."  He jostled her.  "Cecily, wake up."

Her eyes opened.  "Wha–what is it?"  She propped herself on an elbow and switched on the bedside lamp.  Harsh, white glare filled the room.  "What time is it?"

Jerry checked the clock.  "Four sixteen." 

Grengle stuck its tongue out--a blotchy slug of black and purple.

She lifted an arm against the light. "What's the matter?"

"I'm not happy." 

"Sick not happy?"

"More like midlife crisis not happy."

Cecily flopped onto her pillow, squinting at him through her fingers.  "Are you absolutely certain you need to have your midlife crisis talk at four in the morning?  Couldn't it wait until tonight, or maybe the weekend?"

Jerry plucked Grengle from the bedside table and deposited it unceremoniously on his wife.  "Ask Grengle.  It's been telling me to start a band."

Cecily stared at the odd composition of scales, fur, and wings on her chest.  It leered, and she erupted into her familiar, braying laughter.

"You think it's funny?"

"Cute, actually."  She cupped the creature in her hands.  "Who's a precious widdle bugaboo?" 

"Stop cooing at it! It's been whispering awful things like 'your life has been wasted' and 'love isn't enough' at me."

Wordlessly, Cecily handed Grengle back and reached for the drawer where she kept her underwear.  She pulled out a misshapen blob of bluish-gray from a pile of cotton bikinis and gave it a poke.

The matted shape uncurled to reveal a pair of pinprick black eyes framed by a straggle of lint-dull fur.  Two stubby wings opened, shedding a smattering of mold-colored feathers.  A hooked nose protruded from the grotesque face at a rakish angle.

"Mine whispers 'no one listens to you' and 'nothing you do makes a difference,'" Cecily said.

It looked so comical, half-asleep and rumpled--like a deranged, monster dust bunny.  A chuckle slipped out, despite Jerry's best efforts to quell it. 

"See?" Cecily said.  "You have to laugh, or else life is all padded walls and straitjackets."

Her monster took wing, half flying, half scrabbling to where his squatted.  They growled and gruffed at each other before glaring in unison at the two humans.

"Does yours have a name?"  Jerry asked.

"Ingrik."

"Guess that means you're unhappy too?"

"Guess so." Cecily sighed.  "You've been doing the supporting husband thing at a job you hate.  I didn't know how to tell you."  Her eyes were so sad, the color of rich loam and autumn; they were beautiful, even creased by a delicate web of lines.

Jerry tugged his wife into his arms. "You could've said, 'Honey, y'know how you thought I loved being a crisis worker?  Well, turns out I don't.'"

She sniffed.  "And then I could've told you about my imaginary friend who I keep tucked in my underwear drawer, because hey, what's a bit of job-related dissatisfaction compared to a full-blown hallucination?"

Jerry prodded Ingrik's feathery breast.  It felt feverishly warm and also downy, like a baby rabbit he'd once rescued from a cat.  Not at all hallucinatory. 

"Since when have we started keeping secrets from each other, Cecily?"

"Probably about the same time pygmy Creature Feature refugees started stalking us."

"Oh.  Right."

"At least yours doesn't have teeth."

"It drools." 

Cecily giggled.  "Mine pulls my hair."

"Mine croons '80s top-40 hits off key."

His wife chortled.  "Okay, you win.  Want to trade?"  

Jerry grinned.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I do."

"Great.  Problem solved.  So let's go back to sleep." 

* * * * *

Morning arrived as it usually did, unwelcome and stark, announced by the shrill of their clock radio.  Jerry groaned as he fumbled for the snooze button.  Thumping it, he saw Grengle and Ingrik asleep, huddled together like two ragtag birds.  Beside him, Cecily stretched, her once-fluid joints popping and cracking.   

Jerry stumbled his way to the shower.  With a wobbly launch, Grengle took wing and flurried after him.

Throughout the morning, as Jerry and Cecily went about their routines, Grengle and Ingrik flitted in their wakes.  When they parted at the door, Jerry snatched Ingrik from Cecily's shoulder and Cecily grabbed Grengle. 

"Bye," Cecily said, her keys jangling.

"See you later." Jerry slid into his car and plopped Ingrik on his shoulder.  He ignored its antics as it hissed and flapped its tiny wings.

The commute was worse than usual that day. An overturned trailer blocked all but one lane of the freeway, a mile-long bottleneck made more torturous by the number of motorists slowing to ogle the accident.  By the time he reached his exit, Jerry had the urge to do a fair share of hissing and flapping himself.  At least Ingrik had ceased its tantrum, only uttering intermittent growls as they inched through traffic.

"Nothing you do makes a difference," it muttered as they spiraled down the off-ramp.

"If you've got a better way for me to get to work," Jerry said.  "I'm all ears."

Ingrik huffed, affronted.

Jerry parked his car in the six-story, concrete deck.  As he swayed in step with the other people entering the glass-and-steel monolith, he was amazed to discover all his fellow workers had a haggard and disheveled monster clinging to their shoulders. 

Bemused, he hung his jacket in his cubicle and booted his computer.  His email was filled with enhancement analysis requests and several notes marked "urgent" by his project manager.  Before he could begin slogging through his intray, his phone buzzed. 

"I'd like to see you in my office."  It was his boss, Mr. Rytaco, his voice like a greased snake across glass. 

"If this is about the Enterprise project, I was just about to get to work on the documentation--"

"It's not."

The dull click on the other end broached no argument.

"Nobody listens to you," Ingrik whispered.

"So if I told you to shut up, you probably won't."

"Nobody listens to you."

"Didn't think so."

Mr. Rytaco was typing at his computer, his features in profile, when Jerry came in.  He nodded at the door.  "Shut it.  I'll be with you in a moment."

A closed-door meeting.  Wonderful. 

Mr. Rytaco continued typing while Ingrik clucked and cawed in Jerry's ear.  Trying to ignore the buzzing monster, he studied Mr. Rytaco's sharp nose as it jutted from a face dark from sun and tanning beds.  His tailored suit oozed affluence and money.  Cecily had commented once that Mr. Rytaco reminded her of a crocodile, submerged up to its eyeballs beneath a surface veneer of civility, just waiting for an opportunity to rip some unfortunate person apart.

Mr. Rytaco swiveled around. "I've called you in today because it has come to my attention that your attitude may be detrimental to this company."   

A roly-poly, murky green creature with patchy fur and mustard-brown scales clung to Mr. Rytaco's ear by a fat beak.  It jounced along in time as he spoke. 

Jerry blinked, rendered speechless by both accusation and plump monster.

"Some of your co-workers have told me you've been coming in late and leaving early," Mr. Rytaco continued.  The monster released Mr. Rytaco's ear and murmured into it. 

"Uh, the traffic--"

"Your co-workers also have to transport themselves here, and yet they manage not to cheat this company of the hours they're accountable for.  Do you have a problem with putting in a full day's work for the salary you receive?"

Jerry wrenched his attention from Mr. Rytaco's attendant monster.  "It won't happen again." 

"Furthermore, your appearance is unacceptable.  The clients we work for expect representatives of Muryan Insurance Company to project a professional image."

Jerry gawped.  "But I'm a technical developer.  I never see our clients."

"You've missed my point.  That you came to my office without your jacket is proof of your lackluster attitude.  If you don't rearrange your priorities, I'll have no choice but to reflect your poor performance in your upcoming review."

"But my work is always on time!" 

"We are discussing your attitude, not your work." 

Jerry envisioned Mr. Rytaco on fire, his favorite relaxation technique.  "Yes, sir. I'll put it at the top of my personal development items."

"See that you do.  If I don't see an improvement, you can be sure I won't hesitate to reflect that on your evaluation." The creature on Mr. Rytaco's shoulder squawked so loudly that Jerry flinched.  But Mr. Rytaco didn't react. He merely turned back to his computer, an oblique dismissal. 

Jerry stormed back to his desk.  A new batch of "urgent" requests littered his intray.

"Nobody listens to you," Ingrik whispered.

"Shut up."

Ingrik hooted.

Twenty years he'd been here, living the doublespeak of the business world, prioritizing meaningless agenda items, documenting quarterly performance results, kowtowing to people like Mr. Rytaco. 

Jerry's fingers hammered lettered keys with mindless precision.  He could do this work half-asleep, in fact, he usually did.  He slammed the ENTER key. 

He hadn't realized it would be this bad when he'd started.  Muryan Insurance had offered him a job with a very nice salary fresh out of college, courtesy his math scores. 

Math had been his second major.  It was so like music, the rigid formulas and symbols waiting for a creative lilt to set them on edge.  But what Muryan did was nothing like the beauty of math and music.  They wanted him to cater to men without vision or imagination.  And so he had.  For twenty years.

Even the thrashing, roasting image of Mr. Rytaco couldn't make him feel better. 

Ingrik twittered.  "She feels like nothing she does makes a difference."

Jerry's fingers stilled.  He hadn't realized Cecily was miserable too.  His years of sacrifice were pointless if she, at least, wasn't content. 

Every day, his sweet, delicate Cecily waded into the midst of appalling domestic conflicts, championed battered single mothers, and fought on the side of anyone who slipped between society's cracks.  The hours were bad, the pay worse, but she loved helping people--or so he'd thought. 

"She feels like no one listens to her," Ingrik said. 

Jerry pushed away from his desk. 

His wife gloried in defending the underdog.  She was driven to it.  Indifference would eat at her, tear her apart.  He knew it would; he realized it did. 

Ingrik purred and flipped its wings shut. 

But he could still do something for her.  Jerry snatched Ingrik with trembling hands.  It squealed and flailed, its bird-like feet beating against his palm. 

He squeezed.

Ingrik struggled, its tiny body writhing and twisting.  "No!  Quit!"   

"I said, shut up."  Jerry focused all his frustration on the little monster, striving to crush the manifestation of his wife's unhappiness.

Ingrik whimpered. 

Jerry wrung the ugly, lumpy-gray monster between his hands, feeling its struggles weaken.  But then, by a trick of the light, or a trick of his mind perhaps, in the blackness of its eyes, he saw Cecily--not her image of course, not in the repulsive, shambling goblin before him--but still it was Cecily.  He saw her the way she'd been when they were both young and full of confidence.  He saw her as she'd been the night they'd met. 

They'd stayed up that whole night, just talking, until the white-gold sheen of early morning had crept through the curtains of the window in her one-bed dormitory room.  He still remembered how brilliant the drab fabric had looked, highlighted by the sun and her smile.  He'd known he was going to marry her then.

With a shout, Jerry flung Ingrik away.  It bounced off his cubicle wall and tumbled across his desk before coming to a trembling stop beside his in-basket.

"Ow, ow.  Bad touch," it mewled, cowering beneath its half-furled wings.

Jerry studied the bleating heap of fur and feathers.  A tiny black eye peered at him over a patchy, molting wing. 

"Come out.  I won't hurt you." 

"Get bent. Ow."

Jerry gathered the monster up and cuddled it to his chest.  Ingrik smelled like spiced peaches and cut grass after it rained; it smelled like Cecily's hair. 

"I'm sorry."

Ingrik hiccupped.  "For real?" Its scraggly face tilted, and he sensed it again, the presence that had turned off his fury like a switch. 

"Yes, I'm really sorry."

Ingrik cooed and fluffed itself.  "Well, okay."

Jerry carefully set it back on his shoulder and reached for his phone.  The speed dial beeped the number to Cecily's office in his ear.

The phone rang three times.  He expected to hear the mechanical click of the department's voice mail engage.  It usually picked up on the fourth ring, but Cecily answered instead.

"H–Hello?"  She sounded shaky and nasal, like she'd been crying.

"It's me.  Are you okay?"

She sniffled--confirmation of recent tears. "Jerry?"

"What's the matter?"

"I–I don't know.  I just got so depressed while I was sitting here, not doing anything."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

Cecily hiccupped.  "W–what?"

"Is Grengle okay?"

"It's perched on my desk.  What's going on?"

"I need to see you.  Right now.  Can you take today off?"

"I think so.  But I was supposed to meet with one of the new case workers."

"It's important.  Meet me at home?"

"Sure, I guess."

"I love you."

"You're scaring me now." 

"Please trust me."

"I always have."

Jerry put the phone down.  He cradled Ingrik in his hands as he walked to his car and settled it on his lap as he drove.  Remembering the accident congestion from earlier, he took a circuitous route home, detouring around the undoubtedly still-gridlocked freeway.  It took him by an elementary school, and he slowed when a bell sounded.  Shrill cries and shouts of excitement boiled out as a drove of children scrambled onto the playground, pushing and shoving with youthful inconsideration for turns on swings and slides. 

Jerry watched, not the youngsters, but the tiny creatures attending each child.  It was hard to see them clearly, but he glimpsed a shiny bundle of feathers spiraling around a laughing child's head.  Another with fluffy, bright blue fur streaked after a little boy as he flung himself back and forth on a tired-looking swing.  And there was one riding on a tiny girl's shoulder, dipping its elegantly beaked head around her golden braids.

* * * * *

Cecily was shrugging out of her coat when Jerry walked through the door.  Ingrik cheeped when it saw her, flapping its ridiculous wings and producing a cloud of feathers.

"I think it wants you."  Jerry carried the excited creature to his wife; it settled on Cecily's shoulder with a contented cluck. 

Grengle hopped up and down, grunting for attention from its roost on Cecily's handbag.

Jerry scooped it up.

Cecily watched him with her head tipped sideways, her brow furrowed.  "What's up?"

"Take a look at Grengle."  He handed the dark scaled and furred beast to his wife.  "A good, long look."

"I've seen it.  It's been whispering spiteful things in my ear for the last hour."

"Smell its fur."

"Why?"

"Humor me."

Cecily raised an eyebrow, but complied.  Grengle dribbled a runny line of dark saliva on her hand.  She brushed away the trickle of ichor, a puzzled expression on her face.

"It smells like you."

"Now its eyes."

Cecily lifted Grengle to her face.  Grengle peered back.  The two held their tableau for several heartbeats.

"It's you," she breathed.  Carefully, as though the grubby creature were made of delicate crystal, she handed Grengle back.  "What does it mean?"

Jerry set it on his shoulder.  "I saw them today, creatures like our two.  I saw them at work, and I drove by a school on my way home.  Everyone has one--little kids, people at my office, my boss, everyone.  I don't know why I, we, couldn't see them before."

"What are they?"

"The ones with the kids, they're these bright, beautiful creatures with sleek fur and glossy wings."

"So?"

"Don't you see?  The children, kids so young they haven't had their dreams trammeled by the world; they had these glowing, bright-eyed creatures.  But we don't, and everyone I saw at Muryan either had monsters like Grengle and Ingrik or had these dull, lifeless things that were too stunned to even complain anymore."

Cecily shook her head. 

"It means that Grengle and Ingrik aren't the cause of our unhappiness," Jerry said, "they're the effect.  It means we're the ones warping them.  They've become dreadful and absurd because that's what we are."

"You're saying Grengle's your soul?  And Ingrik's--?"

"Right before I phoned, remember how you felt?"

"Yes."

"I did that.  I didn't mean to.  I got lambasted by Mr. Rytaco and then Ingrik started up.  All the futility, all the stupid little soul-sucking things I've put up with over the last twenty years, it got to me.  I thought if I could kill Ingrik, at least I'd be doing you a favor."

Jerry twined his fingers through his wife's and brought her hand to his mouth.  "I'm very grateful your soul's a damn sight harder to crush than it looks."  Her skin smelled faintly of vanilla and roses, the lotion she used.  "Resilient or not, they're still miserable things, both of them, shabby and hideous."

Grengle fluttered onto the couch to perch beside Ingrik.  They snuggled together, moldy and scabby wings entangled around each other. 

"Don't you think that's a sorry state for our souls to be in?" he asked.

"It could be worse.  What would they be like if we were starving or homeless--?"

"Is that all you want, the basics of survival: food, shelter, clothing?  Is that enough for you?  Because it's not for me.  When I think back on my life, I want to have something worthwhile to remember." 

"We made our choices.  We can't start over again."

Jerry rested his forehead against his wife's hand.  "Do you remember the day we met?  Remember how we talked all night long, how bright and full of promise the world seemed?"

"Of course.  We were young."

"It's more than youth.  Somewhere along the way we lost something: our direction, our heart, and our dreams.  I want that something back, even if it means upsetting our lives."

"What do you mean?"

"I want to quit my job."

"Then what?"

"I don't know.  I'll write music maybe, or try to.  I haven't played or written in years, but I want to try.  I have to."

Like a lost little girl, Cecily curled her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees.  "My job can't support us."

"But you don't want to work there anymore, do you?"

"Ingrik and Grengle aside, there's the matter of bills."

"We've tried the safe way.  We're well off, have a nice house, but look at Grengle; look at Ingrik.  Look what we've become."  Jerry laughed shakily.  "My soul's named Grengle for god’s sake." 

He framed his wife's face with his fingers, searching for understanding.  Tears turned her eyes into luminous pools of light.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.  "If it wasn't for me--"

Jerry kissed away a tear, tasting salt. "The only thing I don't regret is us."    

"There's no such thing as happily ever after is there?"

"That's kind of the question, isn't it?  We owe it to ourselves to find out.  Find out with me, Cecily.  I can't be happy without you."

"Can't you just be happy with me?"

"Love isn't enough."

"Even if we do this," she said, "whatever this is, there are no guarantees things will get any better, and plenty of reason to expect them to get worse.  I don't like that uncertainty.  It scares me."

"It scares me, too.  But having to look Grengle in the eye every day and seeing it become even more wretched and dreary, that scares me more."   

Cecily glanced at Ingrik.  "Maybe love isn't enough."  She gripped both of Jerry's hands.  "But it's something.  We're something.  If you want to embark on some madcap quest for meaning, you're not doing it without me."

A lopsided smile lifted the corners of Grengle's jagged mouth.  "Chasing your dreams," it whispered.

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