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# My Parents in Another Light
- URL: https://tombeaverbooks.ghost.io/my-parents-in-another-light/
- Published: 2026-10-06T01:32:06.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-06T01:32:06.000Z
- Author: Tom Beaver
- Tags: Book: Movies And TV, #Import 2026-10-09 17:51

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> ITEMCHAPNAME: *S*pecial Looks Back  
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> ITEMSOURCE: MoviesAndTV\_v3f.vellum  
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Back before I’d ever been to school, back when all my learning came via family members or TV or sheer imperfect noticing, back in that little eternity of knowing almost nothing, I would make discoveries. One of them I made in the middle of an ordinary night.

We lived in the house trailer then. I was four or five years old, I got up from bed and went to find my parents. They were watching a late movie in the dark living room, the sound turned low, their faces lit strangely by TV light. 

“Look who’s up!” they probably said, but it might have been, with light teasing, “Now what are you doing up?”

There was no question that bed was where I belonged. But my parents would have been patient. Because maybe I’d had a bad dream, or didn’t feel well, or had some worry. They would have made some gentle inquiry, some assurances. At the same time, there was no pausing a TV in those days. Their show went flashing on, and their eyes would have been flickering back and forth between me and their program. 

Whatever had gotten me out of bed, I would have been curious to see what parents found interesting when the kids were asleep. I must have dared some peeks at what was, in the world of night, not the TV of us kids, but their TV. One or both of them said I wouldn’t like this movie, that it wasn’t for kids, that it was scary. And they were right. There in the TV, an arm away, as vivid to me now as it was then then, came a creature, lumbering out of the sea. Walking on two legs but not a person. Long shreds of seaweed or slime or loose skin hanging from its body, and with large, bulging eyeballs. I can still feel my fright. What a thing to walk into your living room and see. 

PHOTOINLINE: 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/39/f1/39f18017-63c0-47af-a3cd-fbc79cd81aba/content/images/tbb-migration-20261009-5ab27b3f/2026/10/image-15.png)

It wasn’t just the monster that scared me. It was suddenly seeing Mom and Dad as not just my kind parents, but also grownups with a taste for the horrible. And with desires that didn’t include us kids. I began to feel unwelcome. And then a commercial came on and one of them got up from the couch for something, leaving me with just one parent for protection. 

I remember I was soon back in bed, away from the nightmare of my nocturnal parents. I can still feel how I shook. I didn’t like what I’d seen, but I also did. Even my older brother had never experienced this. I’d grown up a little, all by myself. *\~ Approx. 2022*