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the door to the crawl space was less than 4 feet tall. inside, only one light near the door was not enough to illuminate the full space. it smelled of mildew. the cinder block walls gave it a dungeon like feel.
dad had set up the electric train track just inside the door to the left. i would often play inside but never beyond the light spilling in from the small door.
further back, behind a row of cardboard boxes is where it lived. i never met or spoke with it, but we had caught glimpses of each other. it would sometimes be peering from behind the boxes when i turned on the light. there was great reason to fear it, but i didn’t because we had an innately understood agreement. everything was cool as long as we respected each others turf. the boxes served as turf markers. i never wondered what lie beyond the boxes, our agreement squelched any curiosity.
when the electric train refused to work, i asked my dad if he could fix it. dad unplugged and replugged the power cord. he wiggled all the track connectors making sure each was secure. his final conclusion was that someone forgot to turn the track off and the power transformer burned out.
that meant the agreement had been broken, i never went back into the crawl space.