COLLABORATIVE MONSTERS

It is Halloween. We are supposed to be keeping monsters at bay. Instead, the child and I are creating them.

Between the two of us, we possess two Mr. Potatohead bodies, the accessories for the equivalent of three Mr. or Mrs. Potatoheads, and one set of Mr. Potatohead safari accessories. We keep switching out parts. This set of eyes for that set of eyes. A beak instead of a bulbous red nose. Different shoes. An ear as a hat. After every few switches, the child has us trade the Mr. Potatoheads and begin switching parts anew. The improvisation, directed by the child of course, has created some rather interesting creatures. They are not those that will inhabit tales of generations to come, but they are monsters nonetheless, and they will be spoken of in the company of the child and I. We will whisper about them. We will remember them on cold autumn nights. They will be summoned forth on future Halloweens. They will creep about in the recesses of our minds. They will haunt us.

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At work, for our staff meetings, we have been reading the book of Genesis as broken up in a commentary by the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann. We are still in the early chapters of Genesis. These are the tales of the warriors of old, the men of renown, the Nephilim, the giants, the sons of God who mate with human women. These are the tales of phenomenal floods, bloodshed, angels who guard paradise with flaming swords, the rule of Nimrod. These are the tales of an age lost, perhaps of a time and places that never were.

I am reminded of the gods of old and their comingling with humans. Of chimeras, gryphons, creatures half human and half beast, horse or cow or other. Of gorgons, cyclops, minotaurs. Of Leviathan, Behemoth, alligator, hippopotamus. Of giants and dwarves. Of the Other.

I am reminded of the first chapter of For the Time Being by Annie Dillard. She is looking through her copy of Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation. She perfectly captures the mixture of fascination and horror that we have for the Other and its siren song. She writes:

A chromosome crosses or a segment snaps, in the egg or the sperm, and all sorts of people result. You cannot turn a page in Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation without your heart's pounding from simple terror. You cannot brace yourself. Will this peculiar baby live? What do you hope? (page 6)

The question remains there before you: What do you hope?

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Where do monsters not lurk?

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I started reading the new collection of short stories by Karen Russell, entitled St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. It is also the realm of monsters. The monsters within are all too real, which is the whole point of all monsters. They are attempts for us to describe the undescribable. They may inhabit the language and landscapes of myth, legend, fable, or fairytale, but they still know how to prickle us with fear and worry.

Karen Russell sees monsters around the children in her tales and speaks those monsters to life without explicitly naming them. The anxiety is tangible, like the monsters themselves—rape, incest, mental illness, abandonment. The Bird Man may have the ability to imitate the calls of birds with beauty and talent, but he is still a molester. And, even though, we as readers don't "see" the molestation, it is hinted at, it is there, present, destroying, tearing asunder those it touches.

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How do we protect ourselves from the monsters? How do we stop them? How do we slay them?

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Every once in a while, the game of collaborative monsters that the child and I are engaged in is interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. We are stopped, pulled back into the space and time of the here and now. The child carries a basket of candy at my flank as I pull the door open to view those who are still trying to keep the monsters at bay.