It’s been awile…I guess I just got out of the habit of keeping this thing up.
I’m sitting at work right now, again, waiting for someone to give me another project to do. It’s alright…I’ve been really busy here the last week or so, so I guess it all evens out.
I’ve decided that when I’m bored here I’m going to write stories. Just…because I can. Why not? You’ll probably be my audience. Lucky you. It wil probably jsut be a lot of silliness. 
So…here I go. Story number one. Or chapter one of the ongoing Kendra-is-bored-at-work story. I dont’ think any of them will have titles, because titles are always the very last thing i do, because I’m terrible at thinking of good ones. Feel free to make up your own titles as you see fit.
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It started off as quite an ordinary day, the day that Sarah discovered the monster in her closet. It had been quite a long time since she had been frightened of such a thing happening – she was nine, after all, and nine was quite grown-up in her opinion. She still liked to play with her dolls, of course, but she was being allowed to use the computer more, and she had her own bike now (which her parents let her ride to Kristen’s house all by herself), and having started the third grade, she knew lots of big words, like slumber. Sarah liked this word, and used it whenever she could. She had taken to announcing to her parents before going to bed that she was “going to slumber,” and her parents would give each other a funny little look out of the corners of their eyes, and Sarah was never quite sure what it meant.
At any rate, on this particular day, Sarah had gone to school, just like any other day. She sat in the same seat, drew the same sorts of pictures during art time, accidentally bit off her eraser as she struggled to understand long division, and got in trouble for hitting Tyler (who, in her defense, would constantly poke her in the back with his pencil, and when she asked him to stop, he would smile a particularly evil little smile and do it some more), and had to sit in time out during her first recess.
She got home and threw her backpack on her floor, intending to watch tv until just before her parents got home – her older sister spent her time in her room, leaving Sarah to herself, and her parents would not trouble themselves with what she had been up to while they were gone if she appeared to be working studiously when they returned home. This may seem manipulative, and perhaps it is, but anyone who was once a child knows that they themselves played such games, and anyone who is now an adult, if they have any sense, will realize that they have had such games played on them.
Today, however, she never got to the tv. A noise from the closet startled her. A great thud, as something fell off a shelf somewhere in its depths. “Lizzy?” She said her sister’s name with less force than she had meant to. Of course it was her sister, trying to scare her, as if she was some child. Lizzy always treated her like a child – she didn’t seem to think that nine was quite so grown up after all. Well, she was not a child anymore, she was a whole nine years old, that’s halfway to eighteen and being able to vote, and she was not going to be scared off like a little girl.
“Lizzy, you don’t scare me. Come out of there!”
Of course, nothing happened.
“Lizzy!”
And then the oddest thing.
The closet door opened, pushed out from the inside, not by Lizzy, but by a small furry creature which was the most incredible color of purple you have ever seen. Sarah was frightened, of course, but much less so than you might expect. She was just so incredibly curious. The creature looked harmless enough, at about half of Sarah’s height, with the soft furr and large green eyes of a cuddly pet. It crouched on all fours, and took a couple of halting steps forward, revealing a longish tail, rather like a cat’s. In fact, it looked very much like a small lion, except its paws were bigger and more claw-like, it’s face was flat, and it had very large green eyes and a very large, wide mouth, filled with delicate looking but undoubtedly sharp and dangerous teeth. There were also two rather small horns sprouting out of its head.
The two stood watching each other for quite some time. Sarah stood stalk still, but the creature, whatever it was, switched its tail back and forth like a cat, and had a rather bemused expression on its face. Finally, it spoke.
“Would you like to have some tea with me?”
Sarah was surprised, and for a moment didn’t know what to say. She had never before heard of a monster who liked tea, or of one that sounded so completely harmless, and even friendly.
“Of course, I understand if you’d rather not, me being a sort of stranger and all, but I’ve heard an awful lot about peope drinking tea, and I’d like to try it.”
“I don’t really like tea…” said Sarah shyly. She had tried it once and accidentally spit it out all over the kitchen floor. Her mother had laughed in spite of herself, and Sarah had been terribly embarrased. “But what about hot chocolate? It’s really good…”
“Delightful. My name is Joel, by the way.”
“My name’s Sarah,” she said, breaking into a sheepish grin. “Nice to meet you,” and she held out her had and shook the monster’s claw-like paw, discovering that its fur was quite soft. “Isn’t Joel kind of a strange name for a monster?”
“Oh no, not at all. It’s quite common actually.”
“Oh…”
“Don’t worry. Common misconception. Shall we get some…what did you say? Hot chocolate?”
“Oh yes!”
And so, on a chilly February afternoon, a day which had all the makings to be perfectly ordinary and rather boring, Sarah found herself doing what she never had imagined possible, even when she did believe in monsters hiding in closets: drinking hot chocolate and chatting (laughing, even!) with a jovial little beast named Joel, who had somehow wandered out of his own world, out of her closet, and into her own reality. Years later, as an adult, whenever someone would tell her that something was impossible, she would think of that day, smile a funny little smile which no one else ever knew what to make of, and say, “No, actually. It’s not.”
