"I, Gail Cooper, being of neither sound mind nor sound body... it’s dark now. I thought that I would be able to see in the dark, that... I don’t know what I thought. It’s already getting difficult to remember myself. I am struggling to remember 'Gail.' I suppose I won’t care soon. 'It' won’t care, soon.
"There was no supernatural development at puberty, nor is this transformation a culmination of nagging mysteries and doubts that have been building my entire life. I’ve always known that something was wrong. I’ve always had contact with them. I’ve always felt, somehow, that I have worn ill-fitting clothing. It seems as though my fingers have always felt as though they’ve been bulging out at the ends, splitting at the seams of flesh. My fingers are not my fingers. Twenty-one years of wearing someone else’s gloves. The sleeves of my person-suit have always been too short, and these lanky legs have never been quite spindly enough.
"Maybe I didn’t always know, not like this. I remember, when I was little, being scared. That hasn’t happened in a long time. My sister... well, I grew up with her, so she counts, even if we’re not blood. Even if I don’t really have blood. My sister was always a horror movie buff, and I wasn’t. I couldn’t stand them. Freddy, Samara, Pennywise the clown, they all frightened me terribly. I never had nightmares about them because I could never sleep when they were in my head. I don’t know when it occurred to me, but I imagined--or perhaps just realized--that Slender Man was my friend.
"I don’t know why it was him. It just was him, he was my friend, and he kept away the other... abominations. He kept the movie monsters, serial killers, and urban myths at bay. When I was little, my imaginary Slender Man didn’t need a motivation. It was enough that I was scared and imagining him as friendly meant I didn’t have to be scared. He was my imaginary security blanket. Well, friendly might be the wrong word. He was beneficial, a word 8-year-old me would never have been able to pronounce.
"When I was older, the coping mechanism didn’t go away. It changed, or my subconscious knowledge of my rather unique situation changed. All of the urban myths and urban horrors were my friends and they protected me from everything else that made me walk a little faster when I was alone in the dark. After all, no serial killer could hide in the backseat of my car if a shape shifting clown was already there. No escaped madman from the old asylum could be under my bed if Slenderman had already folded down his spindly limbs to fit underneath.
"I suppose it’s a good thing I’ve almost always been comfortable with them around. It makes this a lot easier. None of them can—or will—tell me whether they were also human once, or at least human shaped. I haven’t told my parents—not the eldritch creatures. I mean the ones who only have two arms and can’t shape shift into others’ worst fears. They’re safe in Wisconsin. Maybe if this... changing, if the change was less sudden, I might have said goodbye. But I’ve known this was coming for a long time. I’ve heard it in every screech of the train wheels on the track, on the static of a dormant television screen, even in the blare of my alarm clock—they’ve been telling me, in their almost-words.
"If any of you can find my parents before you di—I mean, if any of you can find them, feel free to tell them I’m sorry. Or that this was inevitable from the moment a baby girl crawled into their home and they thought she’d always been there. That’s what they... we, are, you know. Supernatural cuckoo birds, putting their eggs in human nests. Safety, love, and food all in one loving package.
"My parents aren’t my parents. My sister isn’t my sister. Are my friends my friends? When this face is featureless and I have far too many limbs, will I remember my friends, or will I terrorize them as well? Will I still be me? Am I myself right now? I’m a good person, but I don’t think I will still be so when this is all over with.
"What is good? Is it doing right by you and yours? Helping others until you are dried out and exhausted? Acting by a moral compass--where do you get the moral compass? Doing what you are meant to do? People do many things. People are meant to do many things. People are meant to survive. We survive so long as people know us. We hunt. Is hunting “good”? We do not reason. We do not question. We act. There is no morality, there is no criticism that will open the eyes we do not have—or the dozens of eyes that we do have.
"It doesn’t hurt. Not really. When I began to realize what was going to happen, what is happening now, I thought that it would hurt. I thought that ripping apart the seams of mortality would feel like... mortal wounds. Maybe it did hurt, and I can’t remember that time anymore. Maybe all my nerves are burned out from the pain that has already been. Maybe I don’t have nerves anymore. I can’t remember a lot of things. I can’t remember when this started. Maybe it has been happening forever, and I only know the now. What is time, to those who have forever? Even when this planet falls into the sun, humanity will be aboard ships or other planets. As long as there are myths and stories, night terrors and bad dreams, we live. Your thoughts are our air and our food.
"I can’t get many things out of them. I don’t know whether it’s because they aren’t very forthcoming or because I haven’t fully shed my shell yet. Maybe I can’t have ears if I want to hear what they have to say. I can’t see them fully yet, not all the time. Maybe I need fewer eyes, or more.
"I can hear the question in your minds. 'Are you happy about this?' 'How can you stand it?' 'Don’t you hate them?' Does it matter? No matter how upset you might be that you were born to poor parents, or neglectful ones, or mean ones, no matter of counseling will change who your parents are. You have the freedom of choice and thought and willpower. I don’t even have that. You can work to distance yourself, to change the things you do not like. I cannot. By the time this is done, I doubt I will remember the concept of 'hatred.'
"There is existence. There is being. There is hunting. And there is feeding. No hatred, no love, not even friendship. Fear went by the wayside a couple weeks ago, when the only signs of my crumbling shell were migraines and light sensitivity. I think it started, years ago, with the migraines. The sense of déjà vu I get is seeing through their eyes. That’s glimpsing existence through the eyes of another horror, a moment you see what they once saw. I don’t know yet whether that means through their eyes as a human, or whether the... collective mind doesn’t go that far.
"Cold shivers up the spine are nerves dying off; they’re the first things to go. It’s probably to save me—us—from the pain of the change. It’s not pleasant, your flesh rotting away and shadows oozing out.
"I can feel their metaphysical fingers clenched in the rifts and cracks in my shell. They’re calling to me in every child’s shrill scream and every loud clang of a saucepan onto the stove top. They don’t have to search for me. They’ve known where I am since I was—what? Born? Created? I am them. You might as well try hiding from your own hand. I don’t fear myself and I don’t fear them. It is useless to worry about the inevitable.
"The only thing now that gives me pause is that I couldn’t fear them even if I was so inclined. I have no choice. And if I have always been one of them, and they have no choice, then... but I did make decisions. Gail Cooper made decisions. What were those, then? Do they count? I chose my friends just as much as they chose me. But then, my friends are very creative people. They have vivid imaginations and spin wonderful stories. They could spread this story across the world, and they—we—survive on those who know about us. Was everything I’ve ever done just... preternatural animal instinct? To cultivate minds that can get the word out?
"That’s how this works. We live on knowledge. So long as people tell the stories, write the books, and make the movies, we thrive. We hunt those who know who we are, those who know of us. I’d say that this presentation was enlightening. Even if you didn’t know about us before today, you certainly do now. You are on their list, our list, to be... hunted. This is a confession: I’m sorry."
(This story first appeared in this format in Massasoit Community College's creative journal, The Lantern, during one of my last semesters there in 2014. Prior to that, though, I created the piece for a creative writing class in which our last project needed class participation. I wasn't sure how to do that... and then I decided acting the story as I spoke it, addressing myself to the class, worked.)
"There was no supernatural development at puberty, nor is this transformation a culmination of nagging mysteries and doubts that have been building my entire life. I’ve always known that something was wrong. I’ve always had contact with them. I’ve always felt, somehow, that I have worn ill-fitting clothing. It seems as though my fingers have always felt as though they’ve been bulging out at the ends, splitting at the seams of flesh. My fingers are not my fingers. Twenty-one years of wearing someone else’s gloves. The sleeves of my person-suit have always been too short, and these lanky legs have never been quite spindly enough.
"Maybe I didn’t always know, not like this. I remember, when I was little, being scared. That hasn’t happened in a long time. My sister... well, I grew up with her, so she counts, even if we’re not blood. Even if I don’t really have blood. My sister was always a horror movie buff, and I wasn’t. I couldn’t stand them. Freddy, Samara, Pennywise the clown, they all frightened me terribly. I never had nightmares about them because I could never sleep when they were in my head. I don’t know when it occurred to me, but I imagined--or perhaps just realized--that Slender Man was my friend.
"I don’t know why it was him. It just was him, he was my friend, and he kept away the other... abominations. He kept the movie monsters, serial killers, and urban myths at bay. When I was little, my imaginary Slender Man didn’t need a motivation. It was enough that I was scared and imagining him as friendly meant I didn’t have to be scared. He was my imaginary security blanket. Well, friendly might be the wrong word. He was beneficial, a word 8-year-old me would never have been able to pronounce.
"When I was older, the coping mechanism didn’t go away. It changed, or my subconscious knowledge of my rather unique situation changed. All of the urban myths and urban horrors were my friends and they protected me from everything else that made me walk a little faster when I was alone in the dark. After all, no serial killer could hide in the backseat of my car if a shape shifting clown was already there. No escaped madman from the old asylum could be under my bed if Slenderman had already folded down his spindly limbs to fit underneath.
"I suppose it’s a good thing I’ve almost always been comfortable with them around. It makes this a lot easier. None of them can—or will—tell me whether they were also human once, or at least human shaped. I haven’t told my parents—not the eldritch creatures. I mean the ones who only have two arms and can’t shape shift into others’ worst fears. They’re safe in Wisconsin. Maybe if this... changing, if the change was less sudden, I might have said goodbye. But I’ve known this was coming for a long time. I’ve heard it in every screech of the train wheels on the track, on the static of a dormant television screen, even in the blare of my alarm clock—they’ve been telling me, in their almost-words.
"If any of you can find my parents before you di—I mean, if any of you can find them, feel free to tell them I’m sorry. Or that this was inevitable from the moment a baby girl crawled into their home and they thought she’d always been there. That’s what they... we, are, you know. Supernatural cuckoo birds, putting their eggs in human nests. Safety, love, and food all in one loving package.
"My parents aren’t my parents. My sister isn’t my sister. Are my friends my friends? When this face is featureless and I have far too many limbs, will I remember my friends, or will I terrorize them as well? Will I still be me? Am I myself right now? I’m a good person, but I don’t think I will still be so when this is all over with.
"What is good? Is it doing right by you and yours? Helping others until you are dried out and exhausted? Acting by a moral compass--where do you get the moral compass? Doing what you are meant to do? People do many things. People are meant to do many things. People are meant to survive. We survive so long as people know us. We hunt. Is hunting “good”? We do not reason. We do not question. We act. There is no morality, there is no criticism that will open the eyes we do not have—or the dozens of eyes that we do have.
"It doesn’t hurt. Not really. When I began to realize what was going to happen, what is happening now, I thought that it would hurt. I thought that ripping apart the seams of mortality would feel like... mortal wounds. Maybe it did hurt, and I can’t remember that time anymore. Maybe all my nerves are burned out from the pain that has already been. Maybe I don’t have nerves anymore. I can’t remember a lot of things. I can’t remember when this started. Maybe it has been happening forever, and I only know the now. What is time, to those who have forever? Even when this planet falls into the sun, humanity will be aboard ships or other planets. As long as there are myths and stories, night terrors and bad dreams, we live. Your thoughts are our air and our food.
"I can’t get many things out of them. I don’t know whether it’s because they aren’t very forthcoming or because I haven’t fully shed my shell yet. Maybe I can’t have ears if I want to hear what they have to say. I can’t see them fully yet, not all the time. Maybe I need fewer eyes, or more.
"I can hear the question in your minds. 'Are you happy about this?' 'How can you stand it?' 'Don’t you hate them?' Does it matter? No matter how upset you might be that you were born to poor parents, or neglectful ones, or mean ones, no matter of counseling will change who your parents are. You have the freedom of choice and thought and willpower. I don’t even have that. You can work to distance yourself, to change the things you do not like. I cannot. By the time this is done, I doubt I will remember the concept of 'hatred.'
"There is existence. There is being. There is hunting. And there is feeding. No hatred, no love, not even friendship. Fear went by the wayside a couple weeks ago, when the only signs of my crumbling shell were migraines and light sensitivity. I think it started, years ago, with the migraines. The sense of déjà vu I get is seeing through their eyes. That’s glimpsing existence through the eyes of another horror, a moment you see what they once saw. I don’t know yet whether that means through their eyes as a human, or whether the... collective mind doesn’t go that far.
"Cold shivers up the spine are nerves dying off; they’re the first things to go. It’s probably to save me—us—from the pain of the change. It’s not pleasant, your flesh rotting away and shadows oozing out.
"I can feel their metaphysical fingers clenched in the rifts and cracks in my shell. They’re calling to me in every child’s shrill scream and every loud clang of a saucepan onto the stove top. They don’t have to search for me. They’ve known where I am since I was—what? Born? Created? I am them. You might as well try hiding from your own hand. I don’t fear myself and I don’t fear them. It is useless to worry about the inevitable.
"The only thing now that gives me pause is that I couldn’t fear them even if I was so inclined. I have no choice. And if I have always been one of them, and they have no choice, then... but I did make decisions. Gail Cooper made decisions. What were those, then? Do they count? I chose my friends just as much as they chose me. But then, my friends are very creative people. They have vivid imaginations and spin wonderful stories. They could spread this story across the world, and they—we—survive on those who know about us. Was everything I’ve ever done just... preternatural animal instinct? To cultivate minds that can get the word out?
"That’s how this works. We live on knowledge. So long as people tell the stories, write the books, and make the movies, we thrive. We hunt those who know who we are, those who know of us. I’d say that this presentation was enlightening. Even if you didn’t know about us before today, you certainly do now. You are on their list, our list, to be... hunted. This is a confession: I’m sorry."
(This story first appeared in this format in Massasoit Community College's creative journal, The Lantern, during one of my last semesters there in 2014. Prior to that, though, I created the piece for a creative writing class in which our last project needed class participation. I wasn't sure how to do that... and then I decided acting the story as I spoke it, addressing myself to the class, worked.)
This was always such an enjoyable piece. It's an oddity to me since it is, in its entirety, a monologue, but it works. Makes where Gail is and what she's doing a mystery. Which is possible creepier. She could be anywhere.
ReplyDeleteI think, because this is such an early piece, maybe it should get a rewrite to see what comes of it. Clean up some of language in it. You've clearly come a long way since this.