The Beast

The human imagination is an amazing thing and so it is often incredibly interesting to mentally chart the stages in the development of a story, both during the period in which it only exists in your head and during the time that you actually begin to get it all down on paper. Even when a story is inspired in part or completely by another, new ideas can take you in rather unique directions, leaving the resulting story with subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) references to other stories and concepts. - A mishmash of ideas if you will - Something that seems to fit in nicely with that old adage 'there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt,' that is if you believe in that sort of stuff (frankly I think there are plenty of new ideas, although I'm not sure I could lay claim to any in my writing).

Anyway, that sort of leads me into the story that I've got for you today - like 'The Executioner' it was written in response to Maldoror, but as you will see it is rather different, for while some of the key themes from Maldoror are still there (though not necessarily the same as those that were focused on 'Executioner'),there is a much greater emphasis on the surreal and it also contains (I think) much more in the way of conceptual imagery.

Still, I don't won’t to do too much deconstruction before you've read the damn thing, so here it is:


The Beast


Far beyond the time of man is a place where nothing lives and nothing dies. High above the sky lies blank as canvas that every now and again billows as the cold wind pushes itself across the bitter swelling of the sea, so stained by those that came before. Their remains now twisted into some cruel bower that lies just beyond the shore, a reef of bleached bodies and broken limbs. Devoid of thought and memory.

Rotted ice takes the place of continents, withered into thin lines and jagged edges: a scattering of glass upon a stagnant pond. A broken chandelier in a bathtub. Some contain the bones of buildings, marked by soot and ash, while others cradle themselves around the fallen branches of the great tree.

The old roots still hang from above, ever ignorant of gravity, they are held up by their own weight but no longer grow. Here nothing lives and nothing dies. They are wilted and scarred from an age of misuse, the bark long ago stripped away to expose once tender flesh to ripping and tearing of claws and gnashing teeth.

This is the work of the beast:

The last whole thing with a half a mind, it circles through the seas. Heaving through the bitter shallows to blink and sniff at a world that it no longer understands. For the beast looks but it does not see, it stares out upon the
endless sea with empty eyes, with sockets scooped out.

So it spends its days twitching blindly in the wind and chewing on noise that may have once been words. Always hunger pulls at it; it shivers and shakes in need. A mess of ragged skin and muscle long soiled and stained by sea and sap, it bays at the empty sky because it cannot understand why it needs.

It is a hunter that has forgotten how to hunt. A man that has forgotten that it is a man. What it is to be a man. So it wanders and it searches and sometimes it stumbles upon roots that it has not yet touched and for a time the hunger can be hidden away and it can think, but those times a few now. Once drained the roots stay drained, as here nothing lives and nothing dies.

Too often it finds itself returning to old roots, searching for sap that it may have missed. Sometimes it meets with success and so, driven wild by need, it tears at the tired roots and they in turn twist and shudder in helpless agony. The beast pays no mind. The root cracks and splinters and in a frenzy the beast tries to suck out what little marrow remains.

Black ooze. Black tar. Thick drops slide down into the sea – and float, refusing to mix. The beast cries in anguish and falls to its knees, cupping ruined hands and trying to sift the black from red.It gulps down what it can. The red sea is bitter. It burns at the throat. The beast claws at itself and cries, and then, helpless, cups hands and drinks again.

For here, nothing lives and nothing dies and the beast knows only hunger.


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Originally the idea was simply to write a short piece around need and the sometimes animalistic nature of man (ideas presented in Maldoror) and I think that for the most part I accomplished that, although most definitely not in the way that I had originally envisioned, with a lot more references to other things apart from Maldoror creeping in to it.

All in all I rather like it. It's different and I think I may have actually managed to describe the landscape that was present in my head while I was writing in a way that others may end up seeing the same thing and I like the idea of that very much.

Still, stuff doesn't just go up here for my pleasure, I'm trying to get feedback so once you've read it let me know what you think.

Until next time,

M