One of the qualities of MONSTERS is size. Giants are BIG and the word monster — as in monster storm, monster party, monster problem — is synonymous with huge.
But there are tiny monsters.
Swarms of bees, colonies of fire ants, a sofa on the street filled with bedbugs (yeeeech!)… Marching hordes of anything — however tiny — is a terribly monstrous idea. Although one little bee is easy to ignore, (not only is it easy, it’s smart) when they act in concert they are very, very scary.
After hearing a few bedbug reports, I’m doing my best not to become completely phobic. I’ve also been wondering about the hive mentality, the collective consciousness that enables the minions to act as one, subjugating their individual motives to the common mandate. Doesn’t that sound like Zombies? It’s also a little like the Borg of Star Trek fame.
I’ve been playing around with a few ideas, exploring the wee end of the monster scale. Do you have any thoughts tiny beasts that go scurrying through the night?
Gods…spiders, hairy spiders. Just one huntsman can ruin my evening. A whole horde of them? With evil intent? -shudder-
Don’t know if you ever saw the Raiders of the Lost Ark movies but there’s one where the hero jumps into a pit full of vipers. They’re bigger than spiders but they scare the living daylights out of me too. 🙁
I was completely freaked out by that scene in the Indiana Jones movie. I remember being in an elevator with a family and the little kid wanted to see the movie — badly. I whispered to one of the parents, telling them about that scene and the nightmares it could provoke in a grown woman. I never found out if the kids got their wish. I know I snuck all sorts of movies, books, etc. into my life that my parents wanted to protect me from but that scene…. that was nightmare-fodder!
An army of spiders is pretty darn scary!
Although, of all the creepy crawlies, in real life they have never been the object of my fears. Perhaps the “daddy long legs” that always seem to wander into my room as a child reminded me of Charlotte’s Web. I clearly remember saying out loud to spider, “You stay on that side of the room and I’ll stay here. We’ll be find that way.” LOL…
Tiny ants could make for an interesting wee monster horde, plus they like to make their way into houses too. Every time I pass this one particular mass that congregates by the crack of one of the sidewalks in my neighborhood, I am always compelled to look at the swarm. Then when I close my eyes later I always see them moving around. I can imagine if they actually crawled all over me I would get the creepy crawlies for months. Imagine a character who was tortured that way…
Oh, I can imagine that! Scary…. If the character didn’t have a phobia to begin with, he or she could develop one. Wow!
My mind goes to dark fantasy with this. I could see evil pixies or maybe gnomes or brownies. There is so much from folklore with wee people that can take a dark turn.
Yes! I should definitely do some research into the dark side of the wee folks. I think my education is lacking in that area.