The Magistrate
I awoke, as I had many times prior to that night, in a fit of terror. It was the same
nightmare which had possessed me since that madman, Victor Frankenstein, had come
to visit me. I dreamed of nothing but his hideous creature as of late, the creature yet
faceless and nameless to me. I had only descriptions of a giant, loathsome, immoral
fiend to haunt me. Surely such a being belonged in frivolous parlour novels, and not in
reality! Such was my reasoning, but it became less and less potent as the weeks wore
on. I was almost unable to convince myself that this devil did not exist. His story was
fantastic, but Frankensteinʼs dates had all checked out. He had not spoken with the
mania of a lunatic, but with quiet conviction. I was beginning to view Frankenstein as a
sane man, and this terrified me.
For what if he did speak the truth? This question plagued my waking hours, as
surely as Frankensteinʼs monster plagued my nights. I had promised only half-heartedly
to afford every aid to Frankenstein, and had hid behind proclamations of the inevitability
of the pursuit. Any moral integrity I might have previously claimed had evaporated with
this one shameful act. I was supposed to be a magistrate, the protector of the people,
and I had let this animal run wild? I was without rest, I had been without rest for months,
ever since Frankenstein had come to me about his accursed creation. Every time I
looked on my wife, my children, or my neighbours, I knew that I had failed them. They
were beginning to notice the shadow that would cross my face whenever I would
experience these dark moods, and the black circles beneath my eyes caused by
sleeplessness. Perhaps they would begin to think of me as mad! But I was mad! I
cursed the fiend whose existence caused this dementia in me!
I soon resolved to abandon my family in pursuit of the monster. Frankenstein
mentioned that he had taken refuge in the Alps, and it was here that I first began my
search. The mountains of Switzerland proved barren, so I quit them for Northern
Germany, Scandinavia, and the Russian Frontier. I spent many weeks perusing these
locals, with nothing but my inexplicable mania to drive me forwards. However, I was
soon awarded the most incalculable measure of good fortune. While staying at the
whaling village of Archangel in Russia, I crossed paths with Captain Robert Walton.
Captain Walton had recently encountered both Frankenstein and the beast! I knew that
the monster yet lived, and I would never give up my search until he or I perished.
With Waltonʼs information I was able to continue my pursuit of the creature.
Walton told me that Frankenstein had been possessed by a mania similar to mine which
led to his death, and this shook my convictions for the first time since I departed
Switzerland. Frankenstein was responsible for the creature, and he had many reasons
for wanting it dead. I might have been charged with protecting the people, but had no
need to pursue the animal to the extent of Frankenstein. Several times I considered
turning back, but the night terrors returned to change my mind. Paralyzing fear drove
me forward. This fear led me to it.
I came across the beast at the foot of a massive glacier, huddled over some
semblance of a campfire. It was indeed as horrible as Frankenstein had asserted. The
monster stood nearly eight feet tall, but such impressive height was made hideous by
the wrongness of its proportions. Its hair was long, mangled, and black; its eyes
gleamed with cruel malice. I felt as if a sheet of ice had been shoved down my spine,
such was the effect of this unnatural animal. This corruption of nature could not be
tolerated, I abhorred the sight of it!
“Fiend!” I cried. “Victor Frankenstein told me of you and your history. He told me
of the danger you pose to humankind, and he bade me use every force I possess to
bring you to justice!”
“Victor Frankenstein could not destroy me.” The monsterʼs voice was cracked
and unnatural, like broken glass. “What do you possess that would allow you to succeed
where my creator could not?”
This surprised me. Was it arrogant to think that I could exterminate the beast
when Frankenstein, the man who had made life out of nothing, had died in the attempt?
But it was not my duty to question my powers; my duty was to pursue evil and injustice,
and to bring it to trial for all the crimes it had committed.
“I did not expect you to still be living when I found you. I was told by Robert
Walton that you went forth to rid the Earth of yourself.”
“That was my plan, yes. But you would not understand how difficult it is, having
resolved to kill yourself, to actually go through with the deed. I was originally going to
cast myself into the cold Arctic waters. Every day for a week I stood at the edge of my
iceberg, prepared to jump into the ocean, but the hours would waste away and I would
resolve to try again when next I woke. Eventually, during a violent winter storm, I slipped
into the dark waters, and was relieved to think that my life had finally been taken from
me. But I awoke, unharmed, drifting on another ice flow! Once again Victor
Frankenstein had thwarted me, for it was the incredible physiology which he gave to me
that prevented my death. I considered other methods by which I could destroy myself,
but I had no tools. I tried to starve myself, but after several days of the cruelest hunger I
would find myself eating as I slept. There seemed to be some force which contrived to
keep me alive that I could not surmount!”
“Coward! You who have taken so many innocent lives could not end your guilty
one! Soulless demon!”
“Soulless? How could one who has suffered such as I be soulless?”
“You have not suffered. Frankenstein described to me how you travelled the
country in a murderous rage, jealous of humankind. How has man ever harmed you?”
“Frankenstein has lied to you. Yes, I have murdered, but only after the cruelest
provocation from my creator. He abandoned me at first sight, left me without protection
in this miserable world! And what I have suffered for those crimes is more than enough
penitence for my sins! You have no idea of what I suffered during the original era of my
being...”
I remained silent throughout his tale, and for many minutes afterwards. I had
previously looked on Frankenstein as a genius, the golden scientist whose powers
equivocated him with God. I had never considered his betrayal of his first creation, and
the selfishness which prevented him from protecting his family. To cast an innocent out
into the world undefended is a sin as deadly as lust or avarice! From that moment,
Frankenstein was less human to me than his creation, who did not even have a
Christian name.
“Did Frankenstein ever bestow a name upon you?” I asked.
“The only names he gave me were ʻfiendʼ and ʻcreatureʼ. Frankenstein could not
think of me as something for which to care. I would be surprised if he ever considered
granting me a name, even when I was unborn and he was not repulsed by my visage.”
Again, I was struck by Frankensteinʼs neglect. A name is the basest right any
human possesses. Anyone lacking a name would immediately be singled out as an
outcast, and I realized for the first time the crushing exclusion which had accompanied
the creature for his entire life. He was already estranged from human sympathy by his
physiognomy. Would he be further marked by his lack of name?
He startled me when he began to speak again.
“I never much considered naming myself, for who would ever care enough for me
to even ask my name? But now you have awakened some deep longing in me! Often
during the melancholy hours when I contemplated my death I would wonder what
awaited me afterwards. I was heavily influenced, as I have mentioned, by Milton, and I
long to go to heaven. I fear, however, that my soul is incomplete. Something was always
missing, and I now believe that that was my name.”
“If you are that distraught by your lack of identity, I would be willing to give you a
name.”
The creature gave a small cry of glee, but was too stricken with thankfulness to
speak further. After a few moments I continued.
“What of Adam?”
“I am not so like Adam as you would think,” replied the creature. “He had come
forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous. I am hideous,
and the sight of me scarred my creator and drove him to madness. No, Adam would not
be the name for me.”
“Well, what of Cain? He was the first murderer, moved to kill his brother out of
jealousy, because God favoured Abel over himself. But Cain understood not what he
had done, and God forgave him, and any man who harmed Cain was to be punished
sevenfold for his sins. Cain was also an outcast, marked by God as surely as you are
marked by your appearance.”
“Cain...” The harsh name paralleled his harsh voice well. “I agree that his story
and mine are well-matched. Yes... that shall be my name.”
Several hours later, after the ceremony, I left him. We had said little, and he gave
me the last provisions he carried with him. I periodically glanced back at his campsite as
I walked across the ice sheet. I was almost sure that I had lost sight of him when I saw
something fall from the top of the glacier. Had the man finally cast himself from its peak,
as he had long planned to do? I wondered what his soul now resembled: his body,
mangled and sewn together by an unsteady hand, or an actual human soul. I will never
be truly sure.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The Creator by Brynn Staples (a Frankenstein story) EN11E May 2010
Brynn Staples
723841, English 11 E
The Creator
I reached the address Mary had given me, and sighed longingly. The cabin lay before a glassy expanse of lake and was shielded in an arc by a set of crisp white mountains. By the shore next to an old wooden boat, beds of wild roses and other bristly shrubs grew—an array of colours, muted and bright, dancing at the water’s edge.
“Mary, darling!” I exclaimed, seeing her sitting on the porch. “It’s so good to see you again! How lucky that you’re right here when I arrive!”
“Claire?” Mary beamed. As I came up the walkway, I saw that her smile was wilted, and she seemed almost skeletal—a shell. “How are you?” Her voice was off, I thought, like she was trying to hide something.
“Fantastic,” I sighed, deciding to save my questions for later. “How’s life here? You have a beautiful place.”
“G-good. Thanks,” she stumbled on her words, and I thought her strained smile faded a little more. “Why don’t we go inside?”
Mary let us in and we made our way through the corridors of the house that had been her hideaway these past months. It was immaculate. The place looked barely lived in. The oak floors were polished to a high shine, and looked as if they’d never even been walked on. It wasn’t an elaborate place; not much effort had been made in the area of décor, but it was tidy. After giving me a tour of the cabin, she made tea in the small kitchen, and I told her about life back home.
“You know my employer, right? You can imagine, then, how hard it was persuade him that a break would do me good, and really, I think I left him pretty incredulous. He’s always maintained that he’d never taken a vacation in his life, and he wouldn’t ever give any to his employees, but I think he’s had a soft spot for me ever since I rescued his cat from that burning stable. That, or he’s becoming soft with old age.” I looked at Mary, who was stirring her tea distantly. I’d been talking for an hour now and she’d barely said a word. “Enough about me,” I finished. “How are you?”
“Hm, me?” Mary looked up. “Nothing much is new really. I’m so happy you’re here though, Claire.” She sipped her tea. She didn’t sound happy. The bare sunlight from the kitchen window made her face seem a ghostly pale and the bags under her eyes a bruised shade of purple. It looked like she’d aged years in the past months.
She looked up from her coffee abruptly. “How’s my family? Are they doing alright?”
“Your family? They’re doing great. They’re happy enough, but sometimes they worry. They haven’t heard from you in a while. In fact, I plan to lecture you a bit on their behalf myself. But first, Mary…” I paused, brows furrowed, studying her face. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I asked. “Are you alright? I mean, you’re so thin and pale and—have you been sleeping okay?”
Mary sighed and slowly raised her eyes to meet mine, as if to tell me that I knew her too well. “It’s just, I’ve been really fixed on writing this one thing lately, and I haven’t let myself get a good sleep in a while. But hopefully, all that’s done with and I’ll be free soon.”
She would say no more, though I could tell she was deeply troubled, so I dropped it and kept a close watch on her. It wasn’t good. She was fidgety; she trembled excessively the whole evening, and when we both finally went to bed, I heard her cry in her sleep from two bedrooms down.
The next morning, she woke me up filled with a boundless joy. I thought it was wonderful at first—that such a shift had happened overnight. When I came into the kitchen, Mary had made breakfast already, and she was sitting at the table with a full plate before her. “Good morning, Claire!” she smiled.
“Good morning,” I replied, pleased by her good mood. “You seem happier today.”
“Oh, I am. I am. I am!” she crowed, and there was a wildness in her eyes as she spoke. She was breathing fast and almost bouncing in her chair.
“Breakfast? Have some!” she muttered to me, wide-eyed and grinning. She leapt up, darted to the stove, dished me up some eggs and bacon, smacked a piece of toast on top and drizzled milk over it all. I sat in shock. She was more than happy; she was hysterical. She hopped over the chairs and clapped her hands, laughing giddily all the while.
“Mary!” I cried. “What’s wrong? Please, stop! You’re not well! What happened?”
She grew frantic, and growled, “Don’t ask me, he can tell. Oh, save me! Save me!” Mary struggled furiously with some invisible force and collapsed in a fit. She didn’t move. I tried to slow my breathing.
“Mary?” My voice echoed in the kitchen. I slumped down next to her and felt for a pulse. She was out cold.
She didn’t wake up for several days, and I worried incessantly. She said nothing when she first opened her eyes; just seemed dazed and confused, and I hoped she didn’t have a concussion. There were no doctors around here and the next house was a league away. If she was physically injured, there was no way to get help. And I couldn’t risk leaving her alone with herself; what would she do if she woke up and I was gone? The cabin was supposed to be Mary’s writing retreat, free from distractions, so the only thing to do would be to write letters, which would reach neither her husband, who was away on business for a few months, or her son, who was staying at a friend’s place during that time. It was hopeless.
So, for the next several months, we were alone. The house had ample amounts of food, and in the back there was even a chicken coop, a cow and a garden we could use for herbs. The chickens and the cow were half-dead and the herbs and roots were fairly feeble, but I managed to restore them moderately.
While Mary was still in her vegetative state, I searched for the cause of her breakdown, and pinned it down to her study. It was chaos in there compared to the rest of the house, as if all personality had accumulated in that one room: a forest of books surrounded her desk on all sides, many acting as end tables and chairs; the floor was a field of coffee-stained pages, and the walls and ceiling were plastered with hand-drawn images of a sick-looking man and a ghastly, decaying monster. I wondered if one of the pictures was of the “he” Mary had talked about. I was curious, and perhaps it was an invasion of privacy, but I looked through her files. Most of them were surprisingly empty, but I found one sealed package in the trash. It looked like a manuscript and was titled, Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus. It had been entirely burned on the back and the edges were charred on the front, but I could just make out the address of a publishing company, as if Mary had intended to send it and decided against it. Inside the package could’ve been a stack of financial papers, for all I could read of it; it was so scorched. I quit my pursuit for that day, but about a month later, when my curiosity picked up again, I resorted to rummaging through her other notes, which were largely illegible, but at least untouched by fire. I picked up a minimally damaged book labeled, quite clearly, ‘DIARY,’ and began, with a rightfully sore conscious, to betray my stepsister.
“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world,” I read. “His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade, that this thing that had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter, and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold, the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.
I opened mine. The idea so possesses my mind still that a thrill of fear runs through me when I think of it and I wish to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still: the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I cannot so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunts me. I must try to think of something else. Perhaps my ghost story—my tiresome, unlucky ghost story! For so long, I’ve felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull. Oh! If I could only contrive a tale which would frighten my reader as I, myself, am frightened tonight.
But wait! I’ve found it. This is the story! What terrifies me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre that haunts my midnight pillow. Oh, how I will write! None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of literature. In other studies, exempting science perhaps, you dream only as far as others have dreamt before you, and there is nothing more to create, but in a written pursuit there is a continual food for creation and wonder. You may visit anywhere, make or unmake any world and anyone, and thread yourself into the very fabric of the page, at once bestowing in your characters your very essence, and your ideas.”
I paused, understanding that here lay the root of Mary’s troubles: in her ghost story—her Frankenstein—and in her monster and his author, who must be the figures on the walls. By degrees, she was recovering, but I didn’t think I should ask her about them. She still relapsed frequently, although by now it was starting to seem like she’d regained most of her former vigour. She was becoming much more like the person I had grown up with than the shadow I’d met on the porch when I’d first arrived, and though I was glad, I still itched to know what had tipped her off the edge.
Sensing that my curiosity would soon be answered wholly, I continued: “Reading the messages in stories, some hidden like zebras in a striped room—you see them not but if they move—and others as clear as your nose, has always been a particular joy of mine in empty hours. But here, with my creature and his master, I shall create a world better than such for my successors to lose themselves in. My idols shall cry, ‘You are among our ranks!’ as my Frankenstein becomes a medium for a zebra and a nose in not so much as an instant, delivering my message as clearly as the full moon that glows now: ‘Do not,” I read, realizing at last who Mary had become, “play God.’”
723841, English 11 E
The Creator
I reached the address Mary had given me, and sighed longingly. The cabin lay before a glassy expanse of lake and was shielded in an arc by a set of crisp white mountains. By the shore next to an old wooden boat, beds of wild roses and other bristly shrubs grew—an array of colours, muted and bright, dancing at the water’s edge.
“Mary, darling!” I exclaimed, seeing her sitting on the porch. “It’s so good to see you again! How lucky that you’re right here when I arrive!”
“Claire?” Mary beamed. As I came up the walkway, I saw that her smile was wilted, and she seemed almost skeletal—a shell. “How are you?” Her voice was off, I thought, like she was trying to hide something.
“Fantastic,” I sighed, deciding to save my questions for later. “How’s life here? You have a beautiful place.”
“G-good. Thanks,” she stumbled on her words, and I thought her strained smile faded a little more. “Why don’t we go inside?”
Mary let us in and we made our way through the corridors of the house that had been her hideaway these past months. It was immaculate. The place looked barely lived in. The oak floors were polished to a high shine, and looked as if they’d never even been walked on. It wasn’t an elaborate place; not much effort had been made in the area of décor, but it was tidy. After giving me a tour of the cabin, she made tea in the small kitchen, and I told her about life back home.
“You know my employer, right? You can imagine, then, how hard it was persuade him that a break would do me good, and really, I think I left him pretty incredulous. He’s always maintained that he’d never taken a vacation in his life, and he wouldn’t ever give any to his employees, but I think he’s had a soft spot for me ever since I rescued his cat from that burning stable. That, or he’s becoming soft with old age.” I looked at Mary, who was stirring her tea distantly. I’d been talking for an hour now and she’d barely said a word. “Enough about me,” I finished. “How are you?”
“Hm, me?” Mary looked up. “Nothing much is new really. I’m so happy you’re here though, Claire.” She sipped her tea. She didn’t sound happy. The bare sunlight from the kitchen window made her face seem a ghostly pale and the bags under her eyes a bruised shade of purple. It looked like she’d aged years in the past months.
She looked up from her coffee abruptly. “How’s my family? Are they doing alright?”
“Your family? They’re doing great. They’re happy enough, but sometimes they worry. They haven’t heard from you in a while. In fact, I plan to lecture you a bit on their behalf myself. But first, Mary…” I paused, brows furrowed, studying her face. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I asked. “Are you alright? I mean, you’re so thin and pale and—have you been sleeping okay?”
Mary sighed and slowly raised her eyes to meet mine, as if to tell me that I knew her too well. “It’s just, I’ve been really fixed on writing this one thing lately, and I haven’t let myself get a good sleep in a while. But hopefully, all that’s done with and I’ll be free soon.”
She would say no more, though I could tell she was deeply troubled, so I dropped it and kept a close watch on her. It wasn’t good. She was fidgety; she trembled excessively the whole evening, and when we both finally went to bed, I heard her cry in her sleep from two bedrooms down.
The next morning, she woke me up filled with a boundless joy. I thought it was wonderful at first—that such a shift had happened overnight. When I came into the kitchen, Mary had made breakfast already, and she was sitting at the table with a full plate before her. “Good morning, Claire!” she smiled.
“Good morning,” I replied, pleased by her good mood. “You seem happier today.”
“Oh, I am. I am. I am!” she crowed, and there was a wildness in her eyes as she spoke. She was breathing fast and almost bouncing in her chair.
“Breakfast? Have some!” she muttered to me, wide-eyed and grinning. She leapt up, darted to the stove, dished me up some eggs and bacon, smacked a piece of toast on top and drizzled milk over it all. I sat in shock. She was more than happy; she was hysterical. She hopped over the chairs and clapped her hands, laughing giddily all the while.
“Mary!” I cried. “What’s wrong? Please, stop! You’re not well! What happened?”
She grew frantic, and growled, “Don’t ask me, he can tell. Oh, save me! Save me!” Mary struggled furiously with some invisible force and collapsed in a fit. She didn’t move. I tried to slow my breathing.
“Mary?” My voice echoed in the kitchen. I slumped down next to her and felt for a pulse. She was out cold.
She didn’t wake up for several days, and I worried incessantly. She said nothing when she first opened her eyes; just seemed dazed and confused, and I hoped she didn’t have a concussion. There were no doctors around here and the next house was a league away. If she was physically injured, there was no way to get help. And I couldn’t risk leaving her alone with herself; what would she do if she woke up and I was gone? The cabin was supposed to be Mary’s writing retreat, free from distractions, so the only thing to do would be to write letters, which would reach neither her husband, who was away on business for a few months, or her son, who was staying at a friend’s place during that time. It was hopeless.
So, for the next several months, we were alone. The house had ample amounts of food, and in the back there was even a chicken coop, a cow and a garden we could use for herbs. The chickens and the cow were half-dead and the herbs and roots were fairly feeble, but I managed to restore them moderately.
While Mary was still in her vegetative state, I searched for the cause of her breakdown, and pinned it down to her study. It was chaos in there compared to the rest of the house, as if all personality had accumulated in that one room: a forest of books surrounded her desk on all sides, many acting as end tables and chairs; the floor was a field of coffee-stained pages, and the walls and ceiling were plastered with hand-drawn images of a sick-looking man and a ghastly, decaying monster. I wondered if one of the pictures was of the “he” Mary had talked about. I was curious, and perhaps it was an invasion of privacy, but I looked through her files. Most of them were surprisingly empty, but I found one sealed package in the trash. It looked like a manuscript and was titled, Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus. It had been entirely burned on the back and the edges were charred on the front, but I could just make out the address of a publishing company, as if Mary had intended to send it and decided against it. Inside the package could’ve been a stack of financial papers, for all I could read of it; it was so scorched. I quit my pursuit for that day, but about a month later, when my curiosity picked up again, I resorted to rummaging through her other notes, which were largely illegible, but at least untouched by fire. I picked up a minimally damaged book labeled, quite clearly, ‘DIARY,’ and began, with a rightfully sore conscious, to betray my stepsister.
“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world,” I read. “His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handiwork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated would fade, that this thing that had received such imperfect animation would subside into dead matter, and he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench forever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he opens his eyes; behold, the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening his curtains and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.
I opened mine. The idea so possesses my mind still that a thrill of fear runs through me when I think of it and I wish to exchange the ghastly image of my fancy for the realities around. I see them still: the very room, the dark parquet, the closed shutters with the moonlight struggling through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps were beyond. I cannot so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still it haunts me. I must try to think of something else. Perhaps my ghost story—my tiresome, unlucky ghost story! For so long, I’ve felt that blank incapability of invention which is the greatest misery of authorship, when dull. Oh! If I could only contrive a tale which would frighten my reader as I, myself, am frightened tonight.
But wait! I’ve found it. This is the story! What terrifies me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre that haunts my midnight pillow. Oh, how I will write! None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of literature. In other studies, exempting science perhaps, you dream only as far as others have dreamt before you, and there is nothing more to create, but in a written pursuit there is a continual food for creation and wonder. You may visit anywhere, make or unmake any world and anyone, and thread yourself into the very fabric of the page, at once bestowing in your characters your very essence, and your ideas.”
I paused, understanding that here lay the root of Mary’s troubles: in her ghost story—her Frankenstein—and in her monster and his author, who must be the figures on the walls. By degrees, she was recovering, but I didn’t think I should ask her about them. She still relapsed frequently, although by now it was starting to seem like she’d regained most of her former vigour. She was becoming much more like the person I had grown up with than the shadow I’d met on the porch when I’d first arrived, and though I was glad, I still itched to know what had tipped her off the edge.
Sensing that my curiosity would soon be answered wholly, I continued: “Reading the messages in stories, some hidden like zebras in a striped room—you see them not but if they move—and others as clear as your nose, has always been a particular joy of mine in empty hours. But here, with my creature and his master, I shall create a world better than such for my successors to lose themselves in. My idols shall cry, ‘You are among our ranks!’ as my Frankenstein becomes a medium for a zebra and a nose in not so much as an instant, delivering my message as clearly as the full moon that glows now: ‘Do not,” I read, realizing at last who Mary had become, “play God.’”
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