The Monster
Toby Litt
(for Ali Smith)
The monster didn't know what it was - what kind of monster or
even, now and again, whether a monster at all. It had lived for what
felt like a long time without mirrors, which didn't exist, or puddles,
which it instinctively avoided. There were other monsters in creation, or the monster assumed they were other monsters (it did not
philosophize on the nature of monstrosity - all could be monsters,
without a norm from which to deviate), and, had it asked them,
these other monsters would probably have described it to itself,
using the few words and concepts available to them: monster,
creation, sun, tree, fruit, merd, good, bad, up and down. But the
monster was for some reason averse to this, just as it was averse to
puddles, and had only learnt of the practice by overhearing one
monster being described by another. The sentence it overheard
was: 'Monster up up good fruit, down down bad merd.' And so the
monster had always found out most about itself by touch. There
were two soft floppy growths upon each side of its head, and its
long curved back felt rough at the bottom, like the skin of a fruit.
The monster couldn't see its own feet because its belly, which was
huge, got in the way. Every time the monster explored itself,
though, its hands (it definitely had hands) seemed to encounter
something different. With no written language, it was impossible
for the monster to record these changes or the supposed status quo
which had preceded them. For example, the monster had a vague
sense that, sometime in the distant past, it had either been smaller
or had walked upon four legs rather than two. It didn't have a very
good memory, but it was disturbed by the thought that once upon
a time it had had to look up at things which now it looked down
at, yes, and it had had to stretch on tiptoes to reach things which
were now at eye level. Most of these things observed and grabbed
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The Book of Other...