Loveday Writing

The monster museum**

Monsters on Display

Hopefully this museum will be healing for at least one person.

Inspired by the What Were You Wearing exhibit, Julia decided to open The Monster Museum, but the exhibits wouldn’t explore ancient artefacts, or people with birth defects that would have been labelled as “monsters” in the past.

The Museum would display monsters of the human condition.

The exhibits would focus on murders that weren’t sensational enough to make the news, domestic violence situations that focused on the perp not the victim who was blamed for the perp’s actions, and brainwashed people who thought they could make the world better by killing innocent people in bulk. Multiple exhibits of the garden variety, abusive narcissist would be planted throughout the Museum’s halls to remind visitors of monsters that are common, can be hidden in plain sight, yet want all the attention and mental energy of the world.

These are not the monsters under the bed that people were scared of as kids, or who turned our dreams into nightmares during our sleep. These monsters are sneaky and are present in our everyday lives.

Julia completed one last walk through to check all the exhibits were ready prior to the grand opening. One of the first sights she saw was a cleaner mopping up a coffee spill, a repeating problem lately, due to some of the detailed and shocking exhibits. Julia knew she’d have to put up plenty of signage banning food and beverages near the exhibits, but was pleased that they had the shock value that she intended.

Julia wondered how many monsters would walk through the doors and down the halls, and see themselves in the exhibits, whether they’d be shocked, reflect, or keep moving along in denial. She also wondered how many of them would be accompanied by their victims, hopefully this will Museum will be healing for them.

**Reference: Marsden J 1998, Everything I Know About Writing, Pan Macmillan, Australia.