Moai

[poliphilo]

The Moai of Easter Island are huge statues, with elongated faces, jutting chins, heavy brows and ski jump noses. They look a bit like Richard Nixon and a bit like the Frankenstein monster.

There is nothing like them anywhere else in the world. These days we know something of the culture that produced them, but back in the 1950s no-one had a clue. I decided they were supernatural. Perhaps they came alive and stomped around their island when the sun went down.

They were just about the scariest thing I knew. As scary as ghosts. As scary as the very tall half-woman half-rabbit person I once saw in a dream.

I was afraid of them turning up in my bedroom. But that was bearable. I had a strategy all worked out. Obviously they could only appear on the left hand side of the bed. If I lay on my right I wouldn't see them.

Perhaps they were already there, looming up behind me. But that was bearable because it was seeing them that would do the damage. I didn't try to imagine what would happen after. Seeing them would be enough. One glimpse of those craggy, eyeless faces and I would dissolve in terror and cease to exist.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I never stuck my head under the covers. That wouldn't have been safe. Mainly, like you, I watched the door. There was never any question of the Moai coming through it, but other things might. The rabbit-woman for instance. The Moai only posed a threat if I turned onto my left hand side. Otherwise they were powerless.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

When I came home from Forbidden Planet I was terrified of going to sleep. Without a doubt (and because I had learned via the movie about its existence) the Radar Monster would be in my closet, in invisible suspension until the lights were off.

I had a light in my closet, which I kept on, but I couldn't look at it, lest shadows flicker in the cracks, signifying the beast was On the Move.

--

My poor brother, aged 7 or so, actually crawled under the theater seat when giant spiders appeared on the theater screen.

I wanted to join him, but I was nine and too embarrassed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

When television was very new the BBC entertained the kiddies with a cartoon series about a loveable, perky little cowboy called Hank. Hank used to drive me screaming from the room. He had these spiky black moustaches, see.....