How I Met Your Monster

“Sooo.” Stasi pops her gum. Her cherry lip gloss matches the shade of our vinyl booth. “How did you two meet?”

I roll my eyes behind the menu. My new purple boyfriend might be a giant telepathic cephalopod from an alternate dimension, but my sister’s a gremlin.

“WELL,” Bogey begins brightly, suckers plip-plopping across the table. “THERE I WAS. EXPLORING THE EDGES OF REALITY. SPEWING MUCUS FROM EVERY ORIFICE.”

I flag the waiter and frantically mime: Beer. Please, God, bring me beer.

Tentacles flailing, Bogey’s mantle puffs with delight. “A HUMBLE ADVENTURER. MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS—”

“Spewing an interdimensional portal, Bo! Under my bed!”

“—WHEN THIS OTHERWORLDY BEAUTY PENETRATED MY UNIVERSE.”

Of course that’s the moment our drinks arrive.

My stomach’s too knotted to enjoy the beer. Stasi stirs her Diet Coke with a straw. Bogey marvels at the wonder of a plastic sippy cup.

“Look,” I mumble, barely meeting my sister’s gaze. “You’re our warm-up for mom, so could you just…”

Stasi sips her soda.

I force myself to take a deep breath. The aroma of pizza is a weighted blanket for my soul.

“It was dark. I knocked my glasses off the nightstand, slipped in Bo’s interdimensional mucus, and we’ve been going on galactic adventures ever since, okay? Can you please have my back?”

Stasi smirks between us. Me with my sweaty beer. Bogey with his sippy cup. Eventually, she shrugs.

“He just called you an otherworldly beauty. I’d be disappointed if you weren’t going on galactic adventures.”

Author’s Note

This story was originally produced for the Writing Battle Summer 2025 Nanofiction Contest. It didn’t win any awards, but other writers voted favorably for it and said nice things about Bogey and his sippy cup.

The assigned prompts were:

Genre: under the bed
Character: adventurer
Object: spectacles