The Beast

There is something hollow inside me. A space surrounded by jagged teeth. My eyes are black holes, unseeing and cavernous, revealing nothing but bone. My face, although two-dimensional, has all but shriveled; I have no nose, no lips, and strips upon strips of rotting skin. Each horrible thing I do, to keep myself glowing, alive, flaming bright, adds to the decay, forcing me to hide. My antlers stretch out of my head, one extending out from either side, twisting and growing and wrapping themselves around anything alive. Each antler gains new heights as I scheme and deceive and lie. I am trying to help you. Don’t worry, everything is fine. It has been so long I cannot bear to see the light. To see every mistake and pale face, of all the people who I have led to die. This small face below my chin came from a very young boy. So full of joy and hope, he was the first to go. This other one right next to it came from an aunt, or was it an uncle? A cousin, a grandfather, a grandmother, a dear family friend. All their faces stare back at me, their souls reflected in the parts not yet decayed into bone.

But there is something filling this space. New faces I don’t recognize. A bird, an elephant, and a boy in a pointy hat. The bird seems to be a guide, searching for a fix to a mistake, from human to bluebird leaving betrayal in her wake, she is resting on a branch that I seem to have extended. Then there is the boy in the pointy hat, a cape flowing behind him as though it will bring his courage back. He does not seem to know where he is, or where he is going, (and I guess neither do I) but he follows the little bird, which I guess is as good as any place to start. Then comes the elephant who is not really an elephant. It is simply a young boy with an upside down teapot on his head. His hand is raised in a gesture, a wave hello or goodbye, so young and chipper with his song about potatoes and molasses, a wayward younger brother so like mine.

They trapeze and they wander and follow an unworn path, each footstep they take pulls up fresh grass. My decaying body is now growing into branches, with twigs and tree trunks obscuring the dead faces. The guiding bird has pulled a trick, to try and counteract her fate, but returns as a savior. Maybe she can save me? The boy in the pointed hat with the long and flowing cape, is finally starting to take responsibility, learning that his weird traits are actually quite endearing, absolutely nothing like me. And then there is the boy with the teapot on his head, he found himself isolated and alone, trying to achieve the impossible all on his own. I asked him to catch the sun in a little porcelain cup, he placed it on a tree stump and waited for the sun to descend, refusing to give up. I wonder if they will come for him before he freezes to death? If the bird and the brother will set him free and fight for him?

They find him bound among my trees, the now black branches wrapping tight, another person to add to my collection of the dying. The grass they grew has shriveled, the branches jagged and dead; I kill everything I touch. The bird begins to push me back, the pointy hatted boy takes control with a swinging axe, realizing what I lack. They have traveled Over the Garden Wall and survived the horrors in the Unknown, thinking that I was chasing them all those days and nights, not knowing that the Beast only follows, observing the people left alive. That hollow place inside of me, now filled with these figures three, have discovered the secret of my lantern, that the flame burning inside is me.