As I strolled into the living room, I stopped to survey my surroundings. The olive colored walls reflected off the large rectangular windows and spilled onto the cold slate floor, the effect of which was seen upon every matching detail of marble and furniture, something empty of meaning, as though it was pulled straight off of a magazine cover.
I never felt at home in my house. It was cold and hard like the hallways in a hospital, not friendly and inviting like the typical family home. I usually didn’t mind, but on a night such as that one, where the freezing wind angrily knocked against every pane of glass, the emptiness was overwhelmingly frightening. I hurried my pace into the living room, to avoid facing the large dark windows, and sat down upon the beige couch. I hurriedly snatched the remote and turned on the television. What I saw was an image that struck such horror in my soul that it sent a chill crawling down my back.
His face enveloped the small television screen. Engulfing it in a frenzy of fiery red fur. He was covered in wiry, greasy, knotted fur that shaped his mangled body. His eyes oozed out of his head as his laugh exploded from his felted mouth. I was mesmerized in a state of cringing fear, paralyzed.
“Do you want to hear Elmo’s song?” threatened the creature, with its beady eyes unblinking. “Elmo will sing for you!” It reared forward, and I jumped backward onto the couch, ripping off the perfectly placed pillow to cover my burning eyes. I could still smell him, a foal stench of musty attics and stale alcohol singed my frail nostrils. Even behind my eyelids, I could feel him, seeping into my skin. His words crept upon me like the menacing footsteps of a hungry spider.
“This is the song, la la la la, Elmo’s song. La la la la, la la la la, Elmo’s song.”
I screamed in terror and shoved both fists into my ears, but I could still here the jingle. I could see his claws, extending out of the television, ripping through my leather couches and slashing the windows into webbed cracks. It felt as though the world was closing in around me, suddenly my television was not just one, but hundreds of televisions spinning around me, each playing the same ear piercing song as it leaped of Elmo’s blackened tongue.
“He loves to sing! La la la la, Elmo’s world!”
I felt the words ingraining themselves into my brain with a carving knife, no matter where I ran I could not escape the horrific portrayal of this monster.
“Elmo wrote his music, he wrote the words, that’s Elmo’s song!” he squawked the last note with a pitch that scorched the insides of my eardrums and destroyed what was left of my inner thoughts. I knew my only chance to retain brain function and hold off permanent psychological damage was to turn it off, so I lunged for the remote. And as my finger clicked the power button, I heard only the sound of the empty silence echoing through my house once more. I drew in a deep breath, to calm my racing mind, and hobbled off toward my bedroom, no longer intimidated by the all so frightening aspects of my house.