A powerful evil jinnee, demon, or monstrous giant.
The weaker corners of my mind want to believe in spirits and phantoms that linger among us. As I type these words a 5-legged beast emerges from ocean depths and watches me perform this mundane, forgettable activity. The ocean is in the cabinet and the beasts have grown impatient among my glasses and canned corn.
A story read to our class in grade school had a lasting effect on me, though 25 years later I might want to re-evaluate that effect.
The story was that a woman received a letter informing her that God would be stopping by her house at 10:00am on Tuesday.
The woman, very religious but nevertheless uneasy about this unexpected Guest, cleaned up the house and prepared food and beverage to offer the Visitor.
10:00 arrived and she becomes nervous that God would not make it. 10:15 passes, 10:30, 11:15. At 12 noon another letter arrives, but the delivery person disappeared with the gentle suburban breezes before the woman opened the door.
This letter gently scolded the woman, saying that God is always present, at 10:00am no less and no more than at her 3:00pm bingo match or in her deepest sleep.
If God is always present then I think mystical beasts are as well, doing the dirty work of provoking fear and guilt with unsubtle reminders of their existence.
I heard them stepping around upstairs last night, and I hear them at this very moment, patrolling the kitchen above me in the guise of performing mundane activities.
I can detect the footsteps of someone washing dishes or cleaning the kitchen, but I know it as the invisible sounds of consciousness.
Other footsteps are less distinct and less frequent, but I aim to interpret them all.
