P - Polystoikhedron

P - Polystoikhedron

I've been waiting for this letter since I started the alphabet. You see, I finally am able to reveal the name of the monster that has been eating Jen's imagination.

The Polystoikhedron.

Actually, I can't take credit for the name. It had been eluding me during the planning stage, so I did what I always do when I'm stuck.

"Mom! I need a name for a creature that eats imagination."

"What?"

"In this book I want to write, the main character abandoned her imagination when she was seven, and eight years later, she comes back to discover that this creature's been eating it in her absence. But I need a name for it."

"I'll think about it."

A few days later ... 

"Mom, do you have a name for the imagination eater yet?"

"I do - and an appearance for it, too."

"Cool! What is it?"

"Do all your chores and I'll give you the first letter."

So we played the letter game for a few weeks, until someone erased the whiteboard where I was keeping track of the letters. Then I begged my mom, pretty please, could she just give me the rest of the letters and tell me what it looks like.

So she did.

The word she actually gave me was Polystoikhydra, but after hearing her reasoning behind it, I changed it.

Here's how I described it in The Ankulen:

Swimming towards us was the largest and most horrid creature I had ever seen. What little I could see of the body was scaly and reptilian, reminding me of a snake. The most noticeable feature, however, was its head … or rather … heads.

There were hundreds of heads, each attached to a snake-like neck. The number wasn’t the worst part, though.

The heads attached to the necks were human.

Young, old, men, women, light skin, dark skin – each head was differed, save for the expression of utter despair it wore.

- The Ankulen.

You see, Poly means "Many" stoik is a respelling of stoic, and the hydra is a muti-headed beast in Greek Mythology. However, this creature doesn't have multiple hydras it has multiple heads, so I changed it to hedron, which is latin for face (I was studying Geometry at the time).

It is pronounced Pol-lee-stoe-ick-hee-dron

The Polstoikhedra (the plural form) are not creatures that you want to meet, and you especially don't want to find one in your imagination. They're almost impossible to defeat. To Jen's knowledge, no one has fought one and lived to tell the tale.