no.48 - Renedudes

A few weeks ago, just after dark, my daughter and I were playing when her ball rolled into the kitchen. The kitchen lights were off. She stopped short, fear in her eyes.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She pointed into the shadows, took a cautious step backwards and said; "Renedudes."

It gave me a chill.

"What's a Renedude?"

"They live in the kitchen. When it's dark." She said, taking up a position behind my leg. She pointed to her ball. "Will you get it please?"

In the weeks since, Renedudes have come up quite a few times. They are in the kitchen and they are mean. They like to scratch. A picture of them grew in my mind - these small blobby creatures with little black eyes — a cute nuisance like you might see on an old Scooby Doo. It turns out this picture is entirely wrong.

Yesterday I asked my daughter to describe them and she did. The Renedude is not pretty.

"They have big hands that end in long nails for scratching. And teeth. That have big, sharp fangs for biting. They are shaped like people but they aren't a people. They are crusty and bald. They walk on their toes."

"Do they have eyes?"

"They have big eyes that are tiny. Their toe is as big as my whole foot and they are so small you can't even see them."

This last part is obviously a bit of a contradiction, but she is only 3. I can remember a strange, horrible feeling when I was a child and things seemed to be big and tiny all at once — usually when I was having a fever dream. The Renedude, it appears, embodies this idea of small and large at once.

I don't have any clue how she came up with this name. It's both funny and a little ominous. But the real question is; where did the idea come from?

It is possible the creature she described is something primal to our subconscious. But I think it is more likely she somewhere, sometime, somehow caught a glimpse of one of those awful horror film commercials with a bald, fanged ghoul. I hate those things. Because she doesn't watch much TV, or any commercials, it could only have happened in a public space, like Best Buy or the Sandwich shop around the corner.

I curse you, unidentified horror ad. Now I am living with Renedudes.

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