@Ozzyy 23 February 2022 more from that month

Unwelcome Visitors [WP] Your toddler's babbling has the unusual effect to summon demonic entities. However, as the kid can't speak, read or write, they are stuck here until he can properly understand and agree to a contract. You are already housing three of them and starting to run out of rooms. ***** I sleep on the sofa these days. It‘s either that or share my old bed with one of the demons — which I tried for a while but it didn’t work out. See, they whisper uncomfortable things to you as you’re trying to get to sleep (death, death, death, no money, your baby hates you, etc). Worse, in the middle of the night, no warning at all, they will scream in your face and be laughing as you wake up. “What a hoot! You should have seen your face!” I’d kick them out — trust me, I’ve tried! But they won’t leave. Or, on the rare occasion I do get them out the house, I might change the locks and close the shutters, but they still find a way back in. Maybe through the toilet or the mirrors, I don’t know. “Your kid summoned us. Until your child can either sign the contracts or kick us out, we’re sticking around. Tough tomatoes.“ They make their own meals which should be a good thing but the kitchen is a permanent mess of sour milk, empty cereal packets, mouldy pizza slices from god-knows-when tucked inside even older boxes or bags. They use my credit card to order in the junk they eat. My husband‘s (ex) alimony barely covers it. I think they love my baby. He did summon them after all. They watch when I feed, overly attentive, tell me off even if they think I’m not doing it right. If the bottle wasn’t clean enough or if it was too clean or too cold or too hot. That he needs burping or he’ll choke. That I should always be watching the cot. I used to work before the demons arrived. Would ask my mother over to watch the baby. But the demons ruined that — they followed me to work, took a cab and came all the way into the office. They’d leer over me as I typed up notes or jeer me in the boardroom. My boss said I should just ignore them, get on with it. Man up. But how do you ignore them when they’re screaming — during a presentation about shampoo — that “You’re a bad mother! You shouldn’t be leaving your kid. What if there’s a fire or a flood or a…” Eventually it didn’t seem worth the hassle. I stayed at home until I no longer had a job and that seemed to make the demons a little happier. Last night I sat down with one of the demons, the blue one who’s fat and a little transparent and smells like guilt. Sometimes he’s more reasonable than the others. ”When he’s old enough to understand the contract,” I said, “and if he doesn’t want to go with you. If it was an accident he summoned you… then will you really leave?” The demon cocked its head. Gave an expression of despair that I’d seen almost exactly on my own face many times in the last few months. ”I’ve told you a hundred times,” he said. “He wasn’t the one that summoned us.” He looked almost sorry for me as I cried. I guess I already knew it, but it still hit like a brick. How many bricks have I been hit with? ”I know you don’t want us here,” he said. “Hell, think we want to be here? We’ve got fresh sinners to be torturing down below. We’re missing out on some real good times.” ”Then leave!“ I screamed. We were silent for a moment, I think both of us were taken back a little by my anger. ”When you let us,” he said, very calm, “then we will.” ​ Today I start therapy. Mom’s with the baby, first time she’s been back in my house for a couple of months. She stepped into the war zone I’d let it become, looked at the bags of trash, no doubt almost gagged on the stink of diapers hanging in the air. She didn’t judge. Or at least hid it. She stepped to me, hugged me, kissed my hair. “It’s okay to need help.” I cried. Again. Said things had become impossible with the demons around. Look what they’ve done to the place. To me. ”We can clean this up,” she said. “I love you.” Sometime, between Mom coming over and my first therapy session, one of the demons, the blue one, must have packed its bags, because only two were left to follow me out the door. Mom says soon, maybe, I’ll be back in my own bed. No demon where my husband used to sleep. No demon watching over me as I feed. It’s okay to need help, she‘d said. So that’s what I’ll tell my therapist. That deep down I love my son more than the world, it’s just hard to show it. Harder than I’d ever thought possible. And that I think I can get better, be who I was before the demons. That I can be happy again. But to get there, I’m going to need a little help. ***** THE END.