Photo by: Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Little Tanya was still screaming when her father ran into her bedroom.
“What’s wrong honey?” worried Greg. “Are you okay?”
Tears streaming, Tanya pointed at the closet. “Monster!”
Greg sighed with relief. Many children imagined monsters in the closet. He made a show of investigating.
But this time, there really was a monster in the closet. “Unbelievable!” shouted Greg. “There is one!”
“What is it?” whimpered Tanya.
“It’s a purple-toed, blue-eared Grabber! ”
“It’s just a Grabber?” exhaled Tanya. “That’s a relief!”
“Well, it’s still a monster.”
“That’s okay,” said Tanya. “At least it’s not one of those murdering Alt-Right Monsters.
____________________________________
Written for the Friday Fictioneers: https://rochellewisoff.com/2017/08/16/18-august-2017/
Author’s Notes:
Recently, members of the Alt-Right, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacist, and other lunatic fringe groups marched in Charlottesville. Counter-protesters marched against them. An Alt-Right degenerate rammed a car into a group of counter-protesters defending humanity. One was killed and nineteen injured. There’s real monsters in the world, infesting society like intestinal worms. We all need to stay on guard and root out the pus-filled Alt-Right infection wherever we find it.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/13/us/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-car-crash/index.html
EagleAye
Momus News 
Yep… sometimes those monsters are real. It is all in how we respond to them that makes them dangerous. 🙂
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Yeah, like not condemning the murderers quickly enough, or assigning half the blame to those defending human rights… Hopefully, folks with a working moral compass can send the correct message to those monsters.
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I never use their preferred term “alt-right,” a PR creation if ever there was one. “Freedom fighter” and “insurgent” are other ones that are manufactured to shape our view. My preferred term is “white supremacist douchebag.”
I like your story, though!
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I’d never heard the term “alt-right” until they committed their terrorist attack in Charlottesville. I like your term though. I can’t print the usual terms I use. But here’s this: for me,, Alt-Right is merely a synonym for “degenerate, in-bred, more-revolting-than-tape worms, lunatic fringe.” 😉 Glad you liked the story, and thanks! 🙂
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Let’s just call them pieces of feces.
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That works. It’s quite apropos. 😉
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A sad state of affairs when the monsters in our closets are not as bad as the monsters in our streets.
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Totally agree. I just hope some day we can dispose of the monsters along the rest of the used toilet paper. 😉
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Oo, what a graphic image, blech… 😉
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I appreciated the topical take. Some monsters don’t have to be imagined, they already exist.
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Glad you liked this. Lately it seems, the monsters of reality are far worse than those of imagination!
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So true! Yesterday there was one more vehicle ploughing into the public in Barcelona. I have been to La Rambla before, where the incident took place. A lovely little place with good street food, fantastic sangria and lot of street artists and performers. This along with the incidents in Nice, London, Germany and Charlottesville makes me question the very purpose of humanity.
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Oh man! In any city I go to I seek out places exactly like that. I’m comfortable and happy in such environments. Had I been in Barcelona, I probably would have been there.
And don’t let the terrorists cause doubt for a second. That’s what they want. They want everyone else to be as miserable and twisted inside as they are. They don’t know how to “create” places like La Rambla nor how to simply stop and enjoy them. In Barcelona they were chanting, “We are not afraid!” Good on them for that. That’s how you defeat the monsters.
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Actually, I was thinking of maybe Cookie Monster, Elmo, or Grover. Those would be monsters any kid would be happy to find in their closet.
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True. I’ve got a soft spot for Cookie Monster (not the cookie dough kinda soft spot though – that could be dangerous).
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This sounded like a cool game a father and daughter might play — until I read your Note. So tragic and senseless.
I read one time that the “father of television”, the man who invented the electronics behind the TV screen, thought once his invention was widespread there’d be no more ignorance or prejudice in the world. Everyone would be educated, have the opportunity to see other peoples as they really were; there’d be no more stereotypes. But at the end of his life he cried because nothing had changed.
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I can see why the inventor thought that. TV has the potential to do that. Look at the programming on Public Television. That’s television as it ought to be, informing and enlightening. Unfortunately, most television panders to the lowest common denominator. So TV is rarely as instructional as it could be. It’s no surprise the inventor cried.
I feel like we’re back in the tumultuous 1960-70s where race riots were a common event, and famously the Nazis marched in Skoki, Illinois (a predominantly Jewish neighborhood).
I do hope that if my voice and millions of other voices rise up, we can stop the infection before it really gets started.
Thanks very much for your thoughts!
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My heart goes out to you folks. Thinking back to incidents when Obama was President, it does seems this open racism has been awhile in the slow boil stage. But let’s hope that, like those years, this is an era that will pass and peace will be restored.
My Dad was a racist. We’d use the term WASP. Anything other than Anglo-Saxon — or someone he’d class as an inferior Anglo-Saxon — was contemptible. I met a southern white racist in Arkansas one time and his comment about blacks would have been in line with my Dad’s thinking. These were two deeply unhappy men, totally dissatisfied with their lot in life and own families, never mind the rest of the world.
Racists are bullies, IMO, people with humongous personal issues who need someone to hate, so they can feel better about who and what they are.
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My sympathies back to you. Your father was misled, tricked by haters into believing their destructive ideas.
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Fear is such a disabling thing, but it’s the fear, not the thing, we are really afraid of, that cripples us. Facing that fear is always good. Well done daughter. Well done, Dad for facing down that monster!
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You are so right! Wise words. Xenophobia is the fear that grips the alt-right. If they only stopped to face their fears and get to know other human beings, they’d realize their only enemy was the fear itself.
Thanks bunches for your thoughts. I appreciate it. 🙂
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Great use of the prompt. It seems many far right extremists are using Trump’s election as a green flag to enthusiastically charge ahead with their hate-filled agenda. Unfortunately, these monsters don’t hide under beds or lurk in closets by drive the streets proudly wearing their swastikas.
What happened to “Make America safe again?”
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They sure. Hate crimes are on the rise. Whether intended or not, Trump has emboldened the lunatic fringe. And yeah, this “alt-right” is a real monster, not just an anxiety closet. Is it any wonder where the lore of goblins came from?
We all want to Make America Great Again. It seems some have destructive ideas about how to do that.
Thanks for your thoughts! Much appreciated.
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Dear Eric,
No you didn’t! SMH And a little child shall lead them. I’d laugh if I weren’t crying.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Yeah, there’s two parts of this. The amusing part gets drowned out by another fresh wound committed by the Nazis and their degenerate friends. All of us with compassion are crying right now. Thanks Rochelle!
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Nice one!
Coincidentally, I just saw a video on FB of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying what he thinks of the so-called “alt-right” (whatever that’s supposed to mean) along with helpful tips for Mr Trump on what he should be saying.
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Hehe. Schwarzenegger has had some choice words for Trump before. I’ll bet that’s an interesting video. 😉 To me, “alt-right” translates to “far right-wing,” and that usually translates to “fascist.”
Thanks very much for chiming in! 🙂
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I’m glad Tanya was brave about the monster in her closet! The alt-right are an intractable problem that will only be resolved with a great deal of hard work and time.
But I am optimistic that things have improved and will continue to improve provided we ensure our teachers are properly trained in how to convey good, humane values to their students. I can only speak about the UK from direct experience, but when I grew up, even nice people routinely used the N word, and discrimination was pretty much universal. And now nobody uses the N word, and there is much less discrimination.
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I agree that things are “improving,” though still not where we need to be. It’s an ongoing, worldwide project to improve how humans treat one another. We’ll just have to stay the course and keep working at it until we are all one family.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Much appreciated!
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Very creative take to reminds us monsters are real.
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They certainly are. We need to stay on guard for them to see whenever they enter civilized society. 😉 Thanks much! 🙂
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I remember Bob Dylan’s lyrics —
“Now he worships at an altar of a stagnant pool
And when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled
Oh, man is opposed to fair play
He wants it all and he wants it his way
Now, there’s a woman on my block
She just sit there as the night grows still
She say who gonna take away his license to kill?”
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Nice! How very apt. It seems likes it’s us who have to take away that license to kill. We gotta reach down deep to find the moral courage to stop it. Great comment. Thanks for sharing.
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Well, yeah, true. But, also, Dylan was aiming for a lot higher than ourselves.
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Too bad there isn’t an Alt-Repellant spray that works for both left and right.
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I understand that police water cannons work on anybody. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make Nazis melt. 😉
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I will never understand the way they think. Evil. Just evil.
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