I kept the comics in a shoebox under my bed, wedged between dust bunnies and old sneakers with frayed laces. Conan the Barbarian—sword raised, chest rippling like knotted ropes. He stood atop a mountain of skulls, gaze sharp as a blade.

“That junk again?” Mom asked, catching me thumbing through The Tower of the Elephant one afternoon. A dish towel was slung over her shoulder, hands red from scrubbing the sink. Her nails were clipped short, practical. “All that macho stuff… You know it’s not real life.”

She reached for the lettuce drying on the counter, fingers tracing the veins of a leaf, her eyes distant. I wondered if she ever read things like this when she was a kid. She never said.

I gave a small nod. Easier than arguing. “It’s just a story.”

“Yeah, well.” She folded the towel with precise, practiced movements. “Real life’s got enough monsters,” she said, her thumb running over a tiny burn mark on the counter’s edge.

I nodded again. I always did. Mom had a way of saying things like they were carved from stone. Conan was toxic. Power fantasies were toxic. My room smelled like the gym locker of toxic boys.

But at night, when the house settled into its creaks and whispers, I’d slide that shoebox out and read by the glow of my phone’s flashlight. The torchlight licked castle walls, shadows stretched into dungeons, and the clash of steel echoed.

I knew what she meant—sort of. Conan solved everything with his fists. He ripped through villages, cleaved monsters in two, didn’t flinch when blood hit the sand. Just pure muscle and grit.

But it wasn’t just that. It was the way he moved through the world—never giving up, the way his sword cut through everything without hesitation. Alone but not lonely. He never looked back. He didn’t wait for anyone to come home.

Dad had left two winters ago, slipping out like the last patch of snow on our front steps. No goodbye. Just a note on the kitchen table. Mom burned it in the sink before I could read it.

I read more Conan after that. Built a fortress of comics around me. Drew swords and monsters in the margins of my notebooks. When teachers asked if everything was alright, I smiled because it was easier.

One afternoon, I caught a reprint of Queen of the Black Coast at the thrift store. Ten bucks, paid for with Christmas money I’d been saving. I read it in one sitting, breathless. But this time, I noticed things I hadn’t before—the way Conan took what he wanted, the bodies piled up, the women falling at his feet.

I imagined Mom’s voice: That again?

When bedtime came, I slipped the comic into the shoebox and nudged it back under the bed. I lay on my back, stared at the ceiling, thinking of Conan—alone on that mound of skulls, sword slick with blood, unyielding.

Maybe unyielding didn’t always mean strong. Maybe it just meant alone versus everyone.

But I still liked it. I liked the monsters and the swords and the castles crumbling under dragon fire. I liked the impossible bigness of it all, even if I didn’t want to be him anymore.

That night, Mom passed by my door before going to bed, her footsteps soft. She paused, hand on the knob, like she might say something. Her fingers tapped once—light, almost a whisper. But she didn’t speak.

Once she left, I reached under the bed and slid the shoebox out. I flipped through the worn pages. They felt heavier somehow, like the ink had thickened. I paused on a splash page: Conan against the world, sword lifted as always, eyes sharp as flint.

And I thought maybe it was okay to hold on to things, even if you saw the cracks. Maybe it was okay to keep them close, not because they were perfect, but because sometimes you needed a torchlight in the dark—just enough to see the monsters coming.

I turned the page and let Conan run wild.