Unrelenting Nocturnal Beasts

          In the heat of her night, Natalia sat basking in the nakedness of her mind, the jaws of her beasts. She was bare and vulnerable to their monstrosity. As a defense mechanism, she usually slept early; hence avoiding the beasts all together. However, there were nights when sleep was too elusive to be caught. She dreaded nights such as those because she knew that the odds were against her. Surely, she has repeatedly defeated those monsters that were eager to feed on her, sometimes rather easily and decisively. Yet, she feared them and would rather avoid those encounters.

           Tonight is such a night; the stage seems set for another fearless battle. The sky is overcrowded with stars that are anxious to report history. Peeping behind some distant hills, the moon hangs his hat very low in anticipation of inevitability. The other nocturnal creatures dare not stick around sensing that the atmosphere was ripe with uncertainty and insecurity.

          Suspicious of the perils looming on her horizon, Natalia did not trust the crisp stillness of the night. She therefore set up several traps hoping to catch eluding sleep, which by then had become a Tarsius monkey. It would literally take some divine intervention to catch some. Caught with her guard down, the beasts would prey on Natalia mercilessly; hence, she would not have and ounce of liquor or anything that would constitute a hindrance for her. She could not allow the enemy to sense any exploitive weaknesses or anything that would signal fear. She set a campfire and does les cent pas reacting to anything that broke the still of the night. Her senses were sharp, muscles relaxed, and her veins pumping adrenaline at unbelievable rates.

         Equally prepared, her predators were not going to jump naively to their deaths. Having learned from previous defeats, they have become the roman army. They were innumerable, strategic, and ruthless; hence, they lurked in the shadows studying their prey’s every move and waiting for an opportunistic flaw, anything that would give them an advantage.  

Finally, they grew impatient and decided to attack. The first wave came from her past. The Roman archers made it rain countless pointed arrows of remorse. The aggressors knew of costly mistakes buried in her youth. Nevertheless, she countered with smiling optimism, some fiery arrows of her own designed to set the psyche of the enemy ablaze. Her guiding philosophy read, “If the past is some deadweight one carries around, cut it loose and witness life take off.” This choice of weaponry was effective as it shielded Natalia from the rain.

A second wave of attack landed huge balls of fire on the uncertainty of her future. This shock and awe strategy was intense, unrelenting, and accurate. Certainly, they thought, she could not have survived that one. However, they never noticed her late-blooming career penetrating their defense line in stealth mode and exploding right underneath them. Her determination and aspirations overwhelmed the pessimist attackers, yet they would not retreat; hence, they charged ahead. The beasts were more determined than ever to have their first victory and bring Natalia’s head to their king. What better place to set a trap than in her current status where she was most vulnerable? She was after all unhappy and dissatisfied with her current state of accomplishments and sometimes felt as though she had failed.

As a result, the Romans devised their most clever strategy yet. They would use guerrilla tactics where pockets of soldiers would sometimes attack simultaneously, at other times, in succession. Each wave of attack would target particular weaknesses by evoking a memory of something that she considered a failure. It was a brilliant ploy, but to her credit, Natalia had some cunningness of her own as she anticipated the type of viciousness they would display. As they guerillas came in their set formations, she dispelled them one after the other. Her counter measures were swift and precise. She used improvised explosive devices (IED) loaded with attitudinal ideologies. She knew that failure was an essential part of learning without which progress would never bloom. Those booby traps went off on every approach compelling the guerillas to retreat successively. They were no match for her superior resolve and virtuosity.

As the sun kicked the moon from its hiding place, the stars ran away as did all of Natalia's defeated adversaries. She was again victorious, but knew that it was far from over. Those broken monsters would regroup and wait for the right opportunity to reemerge, perhaps, even stronger. Nevertheless, this time, she did not fall victim of her own thoughts or societal pressure. Meanwhile, Natalia  vowed to work on more effective traps to help her catch sleep flat-footed and unprepared. That way, she could snooze through her troublesome nights and conserve energy that she would undoubtedly need for her future battles.


Rapadoo,