Merciless1
I think I understand Victor Frankenstein now that I am older
He was lonely and so created his monster for companionship without knowing it was going to appear monstrous. I, too, did the same thing but with myself to cover my own loneliness without knowing that I too now appear monstrous
There was this wolf. There is a story about a lonely animal who roamed the forest at night looking for himself. He was his own spirit animal, his own vision of what he was and what he could be
He grabbed the gun. How could that be? It simply couldn’t. Why would he do such a heinous thing? With so much to lose, or otherwise stated, so much to live for, with so much debt on his soul? Somehow, we stumbled upon the answer but couldn’t recognize it in its pure form. That is just it. Debt peonage of the soul. What else could it be that could answer the why question on everyone’s mouth? Why did he grab the gun and pull it so close? And when we heard the gun snap back, you could swear that he whispered something in the ear of the officer. What started as a confession became a curse. He said, “thank you,” the officer explained. He had attempted to pull the gun back, away, and to holster it, but he grabbed it and wouldn’t let go, the officer reported. And pulled the trigger himself afterwards he expressed thanks. Who would believe that? But that’s what happened. So, he says.Perhaps he thanked him that day for making it so quick and so clean, except it was neither quick nor clean for anyone except him. For everyone else it was long and muddled, but this is perhaps apropos, for he experienced the world inverted in his everyday life. How poetic an ending for it to finally reverse so he could see, right before his death, in the eyes of the officer and onlookers, the very opposite and know how the world saw him and how he saw the world
Perhaps he knew he said it too early; perhaps too late. Perhaps when he stared into the abyss he only saw himself staring back. Perhaps that was too much.
Merciless.
The wolf slipped along the dark path not knowing it was a path anymore at all, the crunching under its paw suggested there was one or used to be one, but he skipped without forethought of what the ground could do when unsteady or uneasy, thought only of her where she was and what her absence meant, constant perpetual and insistent, she was like the dark and he had grown accustomed to the dark to stories of red riding hood and he the stalker in the forest, he had only wanted to taste her to see what she felt like when she was close and she had fallen in his mouth too open & too eager to no longer feel acrid.
He had said he loved her too quickly but meant it still you know what happens when you run on ice don’t you
The contents of his stomach were as follows: ice, still somehow whole cubes, cold; spaghetti that he had not eaten but had somehow arrived unexpectedly inside; and her, still whole and full filled with that chaos of the descent of falling; and of course loneliness but who could have seen such loneliness amongst the carnage and him split wide open, his insides outside drawing parallel to that ironic scene drawn by Hemingway and drawn on by Ellison of the hyena shot, eating its guts with relish and you knew in that moment that the hyena might too have been lonely and yearning and wanted something warm near inside he was cold and even he thought he’d found it only found himself shot now trying to put the warmth back inside they just laughed at him as if he didn’t know how merciless it was to try to put happiness back inside once it has fallen out but what can you do when you’re running over ice and all your things come tumbling out but to try to put the world back together once it has come apart?
He had wanted to bring these spare parts to her to show her he had happiness inside of himself but once she leapt out, she left he stuffed it back inside by the handful, but it too had already grown cold
When he was finished and filled himself with himself in addition to sticks and leaves and stones small and large he pulled himself up his paws turning to hands and feet his snout to a thick protuberance of nostril & his muzzle to thick and protruding lips just large enough to begin his speech the words quickly and unexpectedly coming out he had loved her told her too quickly and wanted her to see what he had on the inside but found himself amongst himself in the woods of his abyss staring in looking for her and only finding himself
Merciless; this is the three body problem.2
- What is this thing we call love? ↩︎
- Just a black dude, an ordinary black dude, nothing infinite or special, walking in forest trying to find himself his peace and his joy that space in him echoed empty and unironically repeated itself each time he tried to fill his loneliness with/in the world & with/in her.
So began the story of little red riding hood and the big bad wolf
↩︎