The Monster

Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon a coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? At length I felt my first stirring; still, at first, it was inward. I began to question what I was, and why I was there, what had become of me. I was in some great confusion about my existence, my being. Then I forgot my deformation and lost it, for I grew accustomed to all men. So I began to grow at an abnormal rate, and my frame enlarged and grew. I, who could barely support my own weight, began to walk in a rough fashion, but in an unconscious way, and without taking heed of my position and how my limbs moved. As I began to eat and drink, my strength grew and developed, but my bones were straitened and cracked and my flesh was scabby. My ability to bear pain was diminished and I suffered much, but I fared well. My constitution, it is true, was deficient and I needed much care, but I had acquired the means of overcoming my weakness. And so I passed my days at the springs and in the woods, without interfering with the acts of the animals. I had learnt to behave kindly. Just a few years back you couldn’t talk about colonic irrigation without getting a picture of a grimacing, painfully thin middle-aged woman with large breasts. I AM MONSTER. My heart is dry.  Horror.   :: 03.29.2022 ::