A few weeks ago, Cooper started talking about someone named "Mara." We were out on our front balcony one evening and he said he wanted to go see Mara. I asked him who Mara was and he would only say, "Mara is Mara." Just for fun I looked up Mara on the internet, and it turns out that Mara is the name of a demon that tempted the Buddha while he was sitting under the Bodhi Tree. She's also the Hindu goddess of death, among other things. Anyway, I digress.
I found that information rather chilling, but chalked it up to coincidence.
So, last night, I was in the dining room with Cooper and he said, "Let's go see Mara!" So, I followed him into the living room and I sat down and tried to get more information on Mara, and Cooper gave his standard "Mara is Mara!" Then he told me that Mara was sleeping under our bed.
(Chills).
We quietly went in the bedroom and Cooper retrieved these exercise balls from under the bed that he wanted to stack up (like Frosty the Snowman). He whispered the whole time, and was very careful not to disturb Mara. He told me that sometimes Pepper (our dog) "woofs" at Mara. It was all kind of freaky.
Here are some of the questions we asked Cooper followed by his responses:
Q: What color hair does Mara have? Is it blond, brown, red, or black?
A: Red.
Q: What color eyes does Mara have?
A: Red. (He told us later that Mara was entirely red).
Q: Does Mara talk to you?
A: Yes, but not to you and Daddy.
Q: Does Mara scare you?
A: No.
Q: Is Mara nice?
A: Not nice.
We told him that Mara was not welcome in our house, and that she had to leave. To which Cooper defiantly replied "Mara IS welcome in our house."
We told him that Mara had to go home to see her family, and Cooper told us that, "This IS Mara's home."
So, what are we supposed to do with all that??? I mean, granted, Cooper's not even 3 years old yet, and he has a good imagination and all, but he's been consistent about the existence of this Mara character for awhile now. It's just hard getting information out of him. But, you know, there have been some weird happenings at our house in the 8 years we've lived there, and sometimes Pepper does bark and growl for no apparent reason. For the most part I never really worried about it. I mean, the house is old, and we live a stone's throw from a 300 acre cemetery. My feeling was always that if we had a ghost or two, they were probably there before we were and, as long as they didn't do anything harmful or threatening then live and let live (so to speak, heh heh...) But, if there really is a red-eyed thing that sleeps under our bed and talks to our son then I think maybe it's time to take a new approach.
