The Boogeyman Lives! (Part Two)

The Boogeyman is like the symbolic equivalent to Santa Claus for the first eleven months of the year. In December, kids better “be good for goodness sake” because Santa is an ill-tempered bastard who is not afraid to withhold toys from kids if they piss him off.

I mean, really, why does HE get to decide if kids are good or bad? One bad day could mean coal in your stocking (a veiled threat to burn down your house if I ever did hear one).

Parents use Santa to keep their kids in line late in the year. It’s kind of distressing, actually, but The Boogeyman is much, much worse.

After all, the nightmarish creature is a living, breathing manifestation of every child’s worst fears that will come and get them if they misbehave... and it can find anyone at anytime and at anywhere!

Is it me, or does it seem a little bit dramatic to tell your kids to brush their teeth and be asleep within an hour or The Boogeyman will pay them a visit? Of course, knowing such a creature existed was enough to keep me from ever falling asleep between the ages of six and twelve.

Talk about a sinister concept. What are you afraid of? Well, for me, my younger self was terrified of centipedes and spiders (especially giant man-sized ones), the Grim Reaper, ghosts and demons.

I never did actually meet The Boogeyman (who is such a bad-ass that I even capitalize the “The” before his name) but I knew exactly what he looked like: He was about 14 feet tall, with giant centipede arms, skeleton legs, demonic eyes, one thousand razor-sharp teeth, a vacuous smile, spidery-legged wings and he dressed in an ebony cloak that sucked all the light of existence into its blood-soaked embrace.

I slept with the closet doors open (to see That Bastard coming) and all my comics books stuffed under my bed, so that this fiend from Hell could not fit under there while I sat up, ever on guard.

And the kicker? I was basically a good kid (well, until I hit puberty anyway). I didn’t think I deserved to be visited by The Boogeyman, but my brothers were such pains-in-the-ass that I was sure he’d come for them and slither into my room by mistake.

Of course, I take some comfort in knowing that I was not the only sleep-deprived child to suffer permanent psychoses due to this creature of ultimate evil. The Bastard has been around for hundreds of years.

The history itself is muddled enough where it’s hard to say the actual origin of the concept. However, it is likely related to pirates.

Some etymologists trace the word “Boogey” back to the 17th Century when England lost hundreds of merchant ships to Barbary pirates who liked to kill, torture and enslave their victims. Near the coasts of Devon and Cornwall was the port of Boujaya, or Bougie in French. Most sailors were afraid The Bougie men would get them. And, they were right, apparently.

Also during my intrepid studies, I was quite surprised to discover that somebody recently introduced visual evidence of the so-called mythological Boogeyman to prove its actual existence.

I always assumed such a creature could not be photographed since its reflection would change depending on who was viewing it, but clearly that is not the case.

While The Boogeyman might change some of its minor surface details to reciprocate the fear of its victims, there is, apparently, one underlying concept of terror that applies to every single being in the entire universe.

In other words, there is something so dreadful that it could be considered the physical incarnation of ultimate evil and fear throughout all of existence. Don’t believe me? Just look at the picture below.

The Boogeyman Lives! (Part One)

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what scares me.
I mean, REALLY scares me.

I have had my share of recurring nightmares. A frequent one features impossibly fast flying snakes that dart toward me from all sides and angles until I ward them off armed only with a garden hoe.

It’s odd, to be sure. I’m not normally afraid of snakes. I won’t pick one up, mind you, but they move along slowly enough on the ground where I feel it does not take much more than brisk walking speed to avoid them.

Hence why my subconscious mind gives them the ability to fly. As for the garden hoe... why I use that a weapon is a mystery to me. Combine that with a phallic symbol like the snake and I’m sure you could have a Freudian field day.

Regardless, I am not particularly adept with garden tools, and yet in these dreams I can catch striking snakes with the handle’s edge and fling them off into the distance in one radically fluid ninja-like motion. But, like robocalls near election day, they keep on coming back.

I’ve had the dream enough where it doesn’t even scare me anymore. In fact, what DOES scare me seems to be almost nothing because, let’s face it, life is terrifying enough on its own.

I suppose ghosts are a scary idea because they represent the part of us that do not want to be forgotten after we die.

What about werewolves? Vampires? Zombies? I think they are too amusing as concepts to be truly scary.

Let’s break them down for the metaphors they are, shall we? Werewolves are normal people who turn into crazy, murderous beasts once a month. Given, such beasts could be male (and not just female -- hint, hint), but it does seem a bit silly and insulting to women.

Vampires are usually more sexual than terrifying. There is just nothing inherently creepy about fashionable individuals who wear goth clothing (including capes and leather boots) and give their victims hickeys.

That just leaves zombies, who generally walk slow (having atrophy and mangled limbs holding them back) and are completely mindless. Oooh. Scary! The only way they can get you is through sheer volume. And, what do they do when they get you? They eat your brains.

The concept itself is kind of dumb: mindless creatures stagger around aimlessly as they try to rid the living of their brains. There is another name for this phenomenon: Republicans. (Oh, OK... fine. If you prefer, substitute that last word for “Democrats” or “telemarketers” or “Cleveland Browns fans” -- but you get the idea.)

The truth is I have always viewed my own fear like irony: I can’t necessary define what it is, but I’ll know it when I see it. This might explain why I love the concept of The Boogeyman so much. It’s the ultimate embodiment of whatever scares the Hell out of you. What an absolutely wonderful idea.

I felt much differently about it, however, when I was younger.


To Be Continued Tomorrow...