I think the Monster is in love with me. Ever since it arrived in the city, it’s been following me everywhere. When I go for a run in the park, it jumps out from behind a bush and runs after me. When I get home from work, it’s there at the front door waiting for me. I’m not sure how to deal with this situation. No one else seems to think it is a problem.

“It’s actually kind of cute,” My friend Laura says.

”It’s not cute, it’s horrible,”

“Admit it, you kind of like it.”

“I don’t.”

Truthfully, so few people love me it’s hard not to feel grateful to whoever does, even if it happens to be something that – quite literally – has escaped from hell. You’d think this would mean it has greater priorities than chasing me through the woods, but apparently that is not the case. It’s sometimes hard to escape the feeling that it might be attracted to me because I remind it of home.

Usually, I’m alerted to the monster’s whereabouts by the familiar signs: the sky darkening, the sound of girls screaming, and the inescapable smell that comes from it, which always reminds me of my mother’s cooking. Even so, it’s not much help, because by the time I’ve registered the signs, I have about five seconds before I find myself face to face with it. My height, which I once believed was tall, takes me up to what I think is the monster’s belly. I don’t often look up, but when I do, I find my entire view of the sky obscured. Its eyes are larger than faces. We usually stare at each other for a moment before I start running.

My reluctance to engage with the monster is starting to become a problem. It smashed my car last month, which truthfully I wasn’t that upset about. It was an old rover I inherited from my father. Fourty years of eating nothing but steak and roast potatoes finally took out his heart and they found him on the front lawn, his chest all swollen, as if something inside had tried to punch its way out of there. Naturally, I would’ve thought the Monster had something to do with this, but it hadn’t arrived in town yet, so it didn’t seem fair to blame it for every bad thing that happened.

When it did finally get here, hitching a ride on the submarine that came back from the Atlantic after a mission to examine the mysterious crack that had appeared in the sea-bed, it didn’t take long for the monster to learn that smashing someone’s car is a sure way to get their attention. While it worked on the first human the Monster fell in love with, a bloated and confused intern at the bank named Gus, it had less of an effect on me. I hated that car. It reminded me of all the times my father had dragged me to the Beach Boys tribute band concerts.

After smashing my car, the monster disappeared for a few days, probably to reassess how it would pursue me further. Then it reappeared and did just that. It followed me down the street. It followed me to the gym. It even tried to follow me into the changing rooms until they put up a No Monsters sign, which, oddly enough, was respected.

The problem here is that no one really knows what is monstrous about the monster. Until now, it’s been known to hold open doors for people and wait patiently at traffic lights. Aside for a few wrecked cars and a few human hearts missing from bodies, we have no real idea what the monster is capable of. In terms of its looks, the situation isn’t actually that bad. A little startling maybe, but once you get used to it, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the monster is, in its own way, better looking than most men. The eyes are the worst part, they look like dimly lit tunnels that if you look into for too long, you begin to feel as if your insides are being melted.

Lately, I try to keep my interactions with the monster at a reasonable limit. A good morning when I set foot outside my front door, a good night when I go inside. I keep hoping one of these days it will tire of me the way it tired of Gus, but that didn’t turn out well for him either.

“I wonder what it sees in me,” I say, one evening, over drinks with my girlfriends.

“I think we’re all wondering that.” My friend Lisa says.

I throw a cocktail umbrella at Lisa’s head.

“You must remind it of something,” My friend Stephanie says. “Where it came from maybe.”

“That’s very nice, thank you.” I said.

We’re not allowed to use the old, Biblical term on the ground it breeds superstition and paranoia, so the official term for where the monster came from is currently known as ‘Downstairs.’

When the monster first arrived, they subjected it to a number of tests, all of which were inconclusive until a scientist called David Beardsley was able to establish communication with it. The monster said it came from a place that was very dark and very hot, a place where half the people who had ever lived currently were, a place where half the people on the planet now would discover for themselves when the time came. Unfortunately, not much more could be found out after this, because David Beardsley retired and went to go and live in a cave in the desert like the old prophets. A frenzy started, and suddenly everyone was baptised, giving up alcohol and being mean to one another. It was beautiful, for the few weeks it lasted.  

“I don’t know what to do anymore.” I say. “It’s always there, looking at me.”

We all turn our heads towards the only window in the bar. There it is, pressed against the glass. Something is spinning in the monster’s eyes. It reminds me of the lights of Ferris wheels.

“This may sound a little crazy.” My friend Lisa says. “But maybe you just need to give yourself over to it.”

“You know what happened to Gus. I won’t come back if I do.”

“Would that be so bad? At least you know there’s another place.”

For a moment, I look at my friends, women I have known since we were girls, and I wonder what the point of it all is. What are we doing with ourselves and our spectacular lives if we can only love each other with falsity, with an affection limited to the borders of concrete forests, where anything honest or good is kept out of sight of the moon.

#

My father told me about monsters when I was a child. He told me never to make the mistake of believing monsters were not real. He told me most monsters look very much like me, and the only way of telling a monster apart from a real person is if they have the desire to create. A monster can only destroy. A person can destroy too but it can also create, something a monster never can do. The desire to create is the only certainty we have, he said, that we are not monsters too.

I want to fight the monster, but it could crush me in seconds if it wanted to. The only thing I can think of doing in the face of this prospect is to create as much a distance between myself and the monster as I can. This can only be figuratively achieved, as the monster has been known to board trains the same trains as me and even once follow me in a taxi through town. Even so, I can create my way out of this situation. I decide to become a painter, something I always wanted to be, but no situation in my life ever compelled me to pick up a brush and try and create something out of nothing. Now I feel desperate. I have to leave something of myself behind beyond my body.

I no longer go to work. For a few days, I browse art supply catalogues and I order oil paints in every colour. I order palette knives and brushes. Mindful of the fumes in my sealed apartment, I order walnut oil instead of turpentine, as well as several canvases. My haul is pretty expensive, something that should present a problem since I no longer go to work, but I figured it doesn’t matter much since I’m probably going to die soon anyway.

While I wait for my art supplies to arrive, I keep a watchful eye on the monster. It’s still there, as always, pacing up and down my street, sharpening its claws on the cars, and glaring up at the sky. Once, I see it do unspeakable things to a tree. Last time I checked, it was eyeing a motorbike that had been foolishly parked nearby. It was hard to figure out if the monster wanted to smash it up or go for a ride on it.

A reassuring sign is the fact that now and then it disappears for a few minutes, something it has never done before. Throughout all this, I keep hoping it will soon transfer its attention to someone else, someone more attractive than me, someone who takes better care of their body, something I’m sure is an important factor in the monster’s diet. The lungs and hearts it’s said to eat couldn’t taste that good if they came from a ruined body like mine.

I’m thinking of this when my intercom rings.

“Who is it?“ 

It’s my art supplies. The mailman says he will need a signature.

I buzz him in. I wait by my front door. When I hear him approach, I unlock the door and step out. I keep my eyes on the ground. Lately, even eye contact feels too much for me. Even so, it’s unmistakable. Once the heavy box is set down on the ground in front of my doormat, I know without looking that it is the monster who has brought me my parcel. The monster’s paws hold out the device that will register my signature. I scribble on it with the little pen the monster gives me. It looks at me for a moment before it walks down the hall. In the distance, I am certain I can hear a mailman screaming.

#

My paintings are ugly. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that they’re ugly, it doesn’t matter that I don’t know what I’m doing. All that matters is to keep going.  Something beautiful and good, something made by my own hands and my own heart, will save me.

I paint forests full of trees that look like broken bodies. I paint a moon with the face of a devil. When I run out of canvas, I paint on the wall. I create murals in my living room. Landscapes and vortexes, I imagine the landscapes are what it looks like Upstairs, a place I imagine resembles the world when it was only a few days old. I imagine the vortexes are like the crack on the sea-bed, a way for the monster to get back home. I imagine and imagine. I create and keep creating.

It’s angry. That tree that used to shield my view of the street in the summer is gone now. The monster uprooted it in the middle of the night and threw it down across the road, where it caused a four car pile up. I can feel its rage, but it cannot touch me. I’m shielded by creation, it wraps around me at night, and sings me to sleep like a mother.  

#

One evening, the doorbell rings. I run to the window. The monster isn’t there at its usual place. I walk to my door and look through my peep hole, expecting to see an eyeful of monster, but there’s a man there instead. A man who, for some reason, makes me feel as if there’s small bird in my chest that I have to cut out and set free in order to go on living.

I open the door.

“Hello.” He says.

“Hello.”

“I just thought you might like to know the situation is dealt with.” He says.

“What situation?”

 “It won’t be troubling you anymore.” He says.

“Oh.” I say. This is a very stupid thing to say, but I can’t think of a better word.

“You look upset.”

“I’m not.”

“May I come in?”

“Why?”

“People shouldn’t be alone when they’re upset.”

“Who are you?”

“You can call me Jim.”

“Is that who you are?”

“No.”

I’ve never had such a ridiculous conversation before in my life. I’m about to close the door when I look into the man’s eyes, which look like dark tunnels. I retreat from the door, forgetting to close it, and the monster walks inside and closes the door.

“It’s a little late to be afraid of me now.” He says. “Don’t you think?”

“I’m not afraid.” I say. “Just surprised.”

“I know.” He says. “Me too.” 

I offer the monster some water.

“Bodies are interesting.” The monster says, looking down into his glass. “So much fluid. I’ve been collecting samples. The red stuff, the bubbly white stuff, and the smooth white stuff and what comes out of your nose –”

“What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.” The monster says.

“I don’t understand.”

“I have everything I could want.”

“How nice for you.” I say.

Clearly, the monster hasn’t learned irony yet, because it smiles at me when I say this.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?” I say.

“Have everything you want?”

“Not really.” 

“Why?”

“It’s not very easy to get what you want.”

“It was for me.”

“You must be very lucky.”

The monster frowns at this. He gets up and walks over to my wall and examines the mural I made. His eyes linger over the landscape. He lifts his hand and runs his finger over the surface. I walk over to join him by the wall. I want to protect it from him. My creation.

The monster looks at me.

“May I ask you something?” The monster says.

“Sure.”

The monster’s new body looks unbelievably solid, there’s nothing soft, no flesh to indent. The monster must know what it is doing appearing in front of me with a body like that.

“They’re saying you’ve left the world behind.” The monster says. “What does that mean?”

The monster doesn’t like it when I don’t answer. He pushes his finger into the wall and when he pulls it away, there’s a deep crater and smudged paint where flowers once were. The monster rubs the wet paint between his fingers and then he reaches for my face and presses his thumb against my lip. Something bitter fills my mouth. I press my lips against his invading fingers to block out the taste of the paint but the monster is now man enough to misinterpret this. He pushes me against the wall and then he pushes his body into me. I don’t think he really knows what to do with it yet. His hands are clumsy, like a baby clutching the air. The monster breathes me in, a deep, resounding breath that seems to last longer than time.

I hold my breath and close my eyes. I imagine I’m alone out at sea. I’m floating on the still water. It’s only the wind that feels as if a thousand hands are grabbing me. To be alone out at sea, it’s almost like being born.

“Where are you?”

The monster’s question pulls me back.

I’ve never known where I am. A solitary tear rolls down my face and neck. Then another.

When I open my eyes, I see the monster is holding a small tube up to the light. My tears are inside it.

“Another sample.” The monster says.

He smiles at me and then leaves my apartment, taking my tears with him.

#

I don’t see the monster for an entire week. I look out of my window and all I see are pedestrians, walking around like the blind and deaf on the day of judgement. No one seems to know the world is an altogether different place than previously imagined. I want to tell them, but ever since the monster took my tears, it’s as if he’s taken my words, and my feelings too. No one comes to check on me, although I haven’t been seen in weeks, and they all know a monster is after me. I remember something my father said to me once: “After your mother died, people stopped talking to me.” I doubted it at the time but it became something that grew in credibility the older I got. I couldn’t face up to it before. It seemed the behaviour of monsters, not the behaviour of human beings whose hearts ought to break for one another.

#

When I wake up the next morning, the monster is sitting at the foot of my bed. He’s holding the teddy bear I loved too much as a child that I forgot to give it a name. The monster lifts the paw of the teddy bear, making it wave at me. I smile. I realise I’ve always known the monster. He’s always been my friend, perhaps the only I’ve ever had. Morning seems to break over me. There’s a strange pounding in my head, as if I’m in a long hallway, where at the end, someone is banging on a door. My body feels like a wilderness that has slowly grown over what was left of an old civilisation. The monster crawls over the bed until he’s on top of me. I close my eyes and dream of becoming.

– Marlena Rebecca

Author’s Note: This is my first publication.