The monster is loose again.
She was in hiding for a couple days, into the woods she went, trudging the soggy paths, up to her chin in fir needles and hidden shadows. Covered in soot, she had found berries and winged mushrooms, after eating which, she saw it all clearly. She rested in the hollows of trees, where the sun never warmed the moist wood, where golden rays have never entered, with no hope of making love through the growth inside. She burrowed in the darkness, feeding on worms and others in exile.
Her rest was needed, she had been banished, momentarily, while the one she normally served- that’s how she thought of it- was on a higher cloud. The girl, normally quite troubled had suddenly found her smile, she was laughing and letting the troubled waters wash over her like warm
Mexican waters on a soft moonlit night. The monster had been exiled, although, at the time, she was not too worried; it was only a matter of time until she regained her strength.
There would come a moment, all too soon, when she would be called back. Not by the voice of the girl, but by another force within her. The monster nestled, waiting for the sickening feeling to come through her. She waited until the moment was ripe with foul blood, until her host was weak and unattended.
Soaring high, with all her inexperience, there would be a crucial moment, when all was open, and that’s when the monster would strike. From the shadow lands she crawled mightily, lurching through a hundred realms like the unstoppable force of destruction and creation that she had trapped in her tiny heart. Both possible under the right circumstances. And she, the lovely monster, chose to destroy. They both chose it, only one never saw it coming. The girl was a willing collaborator, just more unconscious, more
naive in the powers of betrayal that dwelt within and without her realm. The monster chuckled, popping saved worms and berries into her tooth filled mouth, savoring the creative combination of tastes.
Yes, the job is still needed, the position wide open. When the girl falls, the other will enter, leaving victims in her wake. Tears will fall, oh yes, they will land in puddles that take the shape of all the other waiting demons, so close to the surface they take a multitude of ingenious shapes. In the cereal bowl, in the swirl of tea leaves. Always there, always a friendly reminder that they wait. They have been there all along, the girl thinks they’re leaving now? Not without a fight! A real fight for will and presence, and one will have to be destroyed.
Those little fingers move, picking up a pen. Nubby pink toes grasp the air as they move her forward, keeping balance on the large globe beneath her feet. She turns her head to the right, her eyes searching for the bright flash of red that just blinked out of existence. She is a body. A moving, flesh covered body. She walks, breathes, talks, I see her jumping on a bright green hillside, her arms swinging wildly as the soft whiteness of her moves through space. And I see her as real. She sees herself as real. For what can be more real than a body? It is the eyes she sees through, the vessel that takes her from supermarket to concert to warm bed. Is it the body that defines life? I breathe, therefore, I am. I take four steps, therefore I am. I sing a little tune, therefore I am. If she stays still. If for some reason, her body no longer responds to the command of her mind and she sits in a padded chair, unable to dance, jump or walk, is she still “here?” Her body exists, we can see it. I watch it remain motionless as four small black wheels guide her through wide city streets, but what does she feel? Is she trapped? Made powerless and motionless by the body. She can see, perhaps she can talk, but what is still inside? What is it that looks out through those eyes, what is it that still questions? Maybe the being. Maybe the still sleeping machine without mobility. I remember having a sickened feeling as I watched a man in a high-tech contraption. His head was held upright by metal poles, a tube and ventilator helped him breathe. I though to myself, “I could never live like that. Wouldn’t it just be better to die?” Motionless, still except for, perhaps, an active mind. What are we without a body? Maybe this motionless woman paints the picture of what we will all soon be without a breathing, carbon-based body. Trapped? At the mercy of something else? Is this woman with shriveled legs and skinny arms more prepared for the black spaces of the Bardo? Will she more easily recognize the falseness of the body? The illusion of the self? Or will she travel the chambers, looking for something to enter, looking for someplace that she can be “herself” again? How do we determine existence? How do we extract it from the void?
The monster is loose again.