When You Believed In Me

      All these years later, I still can’t help but wonder why humans are so keen to lock things away.

           It was my fault for getting captured. I had been safe, roaming deep within the forests that straddled the border of Oregon and Washington, slipping behind waterfalls and making my home quiet against the mountains, for decades. I was unassuming, and silent, and skilled at being unseen. I knew where humans wandered, and I became familiar with their temptation to roam. I stayed where I knew they would not follow. Dangerous peaks, sheer cliffsides, gnarled tree branches so tightly woven that an explorer was sure to be lost. 

           But I missed them. I missed hearing their laughs, and teasing remarks, the way a twig would snap beneath a dirty sneaker. I missed the way a child’s eyes would linger in my direction for just a beat too long, hesitating for just a moment before they would turn on their heels and run off towards their families. I missed the smell of campfire and roasted sugar, songs sung sillily to one another, stolen whispers beneath the sheet of a thin plastic tent.

           Not even Bigfoot was meant to be alone forever.

           So I allowed myself back into their world, little by little. I got sloppy. I forgot to be careful. Nights spent around parameters of campsites became days where I’d watch from the shadows much closer than before, desperate to belong, forgetting to be careful.

           I was spotted by a family. I’ll never forget their screams.

           I could have run that day. I should have. But the searing part of my heart that craved companionship was louder than my sense, and I had no way to know what the humans were to do. I saw sweetness and awestruck eyes in the people that roamed my forests, and I was only familiar with the humans that would choose to visit my world and leave it kindly, singing and laughing and playing in my streams.

           How could I have known?

           I don’t remember being captured. I just remember waking up in a cold enclosure, surrounded by thick walls of plexiglass and ceiling wrapped in wire. A steady hum of electricity thrummed throughout the walls as the artificial lighting flickered from beyond the glass. There was a pile of dirt and a collection of trees hastily planted in awkward positions. A large metal bowl of water and a dish of cold meat. A garish mockery of the forests I called home and an odd offering of what I presumed to be my food.

           Do they fear me?

           They tried to talk to me, but I do not speak their language. So instead, I was docile and quiet in my enclosure, responding to the humans poking and prodding, ignoring the meat pointedly as my hunger grew. Someone must have figured it out, because they eventually swapped it out with heads of cabbage and lettuce, with a couple soft apples. It wasn’t what I was used to, but it was sustaining. If I gave them what they want, I reasoned, perhaps they would let me go.

           A few weeks into my imprisonment, people began to appear in front of my enclosure. Instead of the humans with the sharp eyes and ill-fitting coats, these humans looked more like the ones I saw in my forests. They were all different sizes and shapes, of various ages and appearances, and hundreds of thousands of them must have passed in front of the glass walls. Small hands pressed up against the glass, rudimentary and awkward signs painted with unfamiliar symbols, eyes wide and excited. Sometimes they would leave pinecones, flowers, or little stuffed plushes that looked strangely like me in ceremonious piles in front of my enclosure. The staff would sweep up these piles at the end of every day and I would wonder:

           Do they love me?

           I think, perhaps, it was a bit of both. And while I may have been the first to have been captured, I regret to say that it was the beginning of the end for my cryptid family.

           The humans reasoned amongst themselves that if Bigfoot was real, what else might be out there?

           Cryptid hunting was no longer a strange hobby. It quickly became politicized, with armies and organizations around the world pooling resources to be the first to find the next one. With so much manpower dedicated to finding what are, for the most part, gentle yet elusive creatures, it was only a matter of time before they found more.

           I never considered why there was such a separation between man and cryptid; it was instinctual, like the feeling of knowing it was daytime as opposed to night. The need to be separate from humans was something I always just knew, but it wasn’t a conscious thought. That same protective instinct permeated the thoughts of all cryptids. It’s why we were never found until I consciously, deliberately, and purposefully let my guard down.

           It was painful, watching it happen in real time. There is a television in the hallway across from my enclosure that plays the news channel, and it was an ordinary day when the banner suddenly flashed red, and the screen cut dramatically to a shot of a large and brooding body of water. I couldn’t hear what the television was saying, but at this point I had learned enough of the human language to read the words running along the bottom of the screen.

           The Loch Ness “Monster”, Nessie, the real Nessie, had been found. I’ll never forget the image of her being air lifted from the deep black waters, her iridescent scales sparkling in the sun she was never meant to see, arching neck and long flippers wrapped tight beneath restraints as she was brought to an aquarium “for further research”. They never showed us what the aquarium looked like, but I hoped the tank there was dark and cold and lonely, because that is what I know she craved.

           Confirming Nessie’s existence was nothing short of what humans deemed an actual miracle, and if they weren’t convinced now, they were ready more than ever to hunt us all down.

           Three chupacabras were found shortly thereafter. I took peace in knowing that there are many of them that roam North America, and that three is but a small fraction of their numbers, but there was pain at seeing the footage of them in tiny metal cages, their fur getting caught on the sharp corners, teeth bared and jaws snapping shut. Their enclosure in the Southwest, I hope, is large and sparse and quiet like the dessert.

           I hear there is a team in Wisconsin assembled to hunt down the Hodag. And three different governments are vying for their chance to be the ones to claim the Yeti. So far, their attempts have been unsuccessful. But it’s already led to tension and strife, disagreements and debates on what to do with us. I’ve heard rumblings of a “zoo” specifically designed to house us. Some call it inhumane. Others call it prevention. 

           The humans that I know now are not the humans that I once knew, and that is because that the humans now know that bigfoot exists.

Those who insist on finding us are taking away something that was once beautiful, and all I can do is mourn what used to be, because I used to see what humans had when they thought they were missing out. Must they know everything? Must they own everything? I used to watch their faces become washed with wonder, when they roamed and sought for greater meaning.

I ask you, yes, you,, to just remember how you were, before you knew we were real, and tell me it wasn’t better. In Oregon, your steps echo quiet as you weave through the Ponderosa pines and the Douglas firs. They sway against one another, and you think you hear me in the distant. You stop, wait, hold your breath, and your eyes scour the backdrop of green and brown and slits of sky blue. You don’t see me, not really, but you think you might, yet what you really think is incredible. This forest is incredible.

Or maybe you’re in the desert, New Mexico, it’s hot and brash and melting oranges and reds and dirty beige. You see a flicker out of the corner of your eye. Fur? Must be a jack rabbit. Yet you thought you heard something, too, a quiet trill, a soft growl, and you find yourself worried about the farm you just drove past, the cattle vulnerable and supple, eyes round and wet with impossibly long eyelashes, peering lazily at you from behind a half-hearted fence. And you think that one day, you’d really like to pet a cow.

Or perhaps you’re walking alongside a body of deep, cold, unforgiving water, the vibrant green of Scotland behind you, peering out over the distance as the day settles into dusk. You see her! Right? That’s Nessie, isn’t it? You squeal and laugh with your companion, and point, only to realize that no, of course not, it must be a log. And yet the highlands wrap you up and remind you it’s okay to dream, the town of Inverness waiting for you with warm hearths and hot bowls of stew, and you promise each other you’ll come back, you’ll keep coming back, and you’ll look for Nessie every time.

These are the stories I could tell about every part of the world where the cryptids used to crawl unknown, when eyes were constantly looking without really finding, and in the meantime, they were seeing what they were always meant to find. A world full of beauty and magic and whimsy, where anything is possible if you simply close your eyes and believe.

It’s my fault, isn’t it? I saw what the humans were, and I wanted to meet them. A craving to know if the mystery was worth it, if my existence was a thrill. And yet here I am—stuck with no end in sight, wondering, hoping, that maybe the others can still escape.

Because I still see it, the same kind of light that drew me in the first place. It’s usually when a child presses their face up against the glass and smiles at me, but on occasion there is an older human that exchanges with me a knowing glance. It’s one of knowing, and wisdom, that there is more to me than just my existence. And I hope that these are the humans that fight for the beauty of the unknown.

Because humans were kinder when they still believed in magic.