My Own Monster

By: The Great Duhmimchi


Some people have a knack for finding strange things; strange always seem to find Zane Legends. But today that just wasn't the case. It was late Friday night, and Zane was spending yet another weekend at home by himself. As he sat there flipping the channels on the TV he wondered what he could possibly do to turn the tide of his evening- not even realizing that he wasn't even watching the TV anymore. Life just seemed so complacent, so dull, so.... Normal. He silently thought to himself, why am I sitting here?

"If that thought was silent how did you know what I was thinking," he said aloud.

Silence followed. Zane turned off the TV and walked over to the window of his pathetically small (and overpriced) apartment to try and catch a glimpse of what the real world was actually like.

"It's not pathetic," he said. "And you try finding a cheaper place with a view like this." His eyes darted frantically from corner to corner of his cramped place. "Where are you?"

Zane soon abandoned his search and returned to his window to watch his "oh-so incredible" view of the city streets below. He stared out at the world below and watched the people that actually had lives go about their way happily and he wondered to himself: will I ever give up this nomadic life of mine?

"Ok, that's enough! I know what I am thinking, and it's pathetic enough without hearing it recited back to me thank you. What are you doing here anyway? Why are you following me?" Zane stared up at the ceiling waiting desperately for someone to answer. "I'm not desperate either!" He shouted.

Look Zane, it's kind of what I do. You have your bizarre experiences and I write about them. It's like a job or something. I mean, I'm the writer and you are the story, so I kind of have to follow you. Now that we are on the subject, you really shouldn't be talking back to me; it kind of kills the momentum of the story. Now I have had to take an entire paragraph to tell you about my purpose here instead of telling everyone what you are doing. . . . Do you see the predicament?

"Just because I understand it doesn't mean that I have to like it," Zane said.

Well I would apologize but I really don't feel like it. I made you after all, so I shouldn't have to say that I'm sorry for using you in the way that you were created for. You only exist because I tell you that you do. You are in your pathetic little loft because I needed to put you in a big city, and I figured that it would be fitting that you were in a dinky apartment of some kind, and...

"Whoa, wait just a second! You created me? What am I some sort of literary monster? Your own Frankenstein on paper that does whatever you feel like? That's not right man . . . . Hold on a minute." Suddenly everything that the narrator had blurted out struck him to the core. "You put me in this place? You make me do all sorts of ridiculous things to entertain yourself?!?!" He could barely contain his fury, his head was throbbing and his hands clenched at his sides in fists so tight that the blood ceased to flow to his fingertips. "You put me in the crappy apartment...."

But I thought you said the view was. . .

"That's not the point!" Zane's entire body was quivering with rage. "I have been on a bloody pirate ship, in the net of some beastie madman, I had to knock out some drunk in outer space, and I nearly had my ipod stolen, and it was your fault!"

Well not all my fault, I mean Justin wrote. . . .

"I don't even know who I am! All I know is that I am constantly hungry and I have a stupid scar on my head that came from some freak accident when..."

Look Zane, you are getting a little carried away here. I understand that your position in these stories is difficult, but that's the way it is. We need to move the plot along and keep things interesting. That's the reason you are here. Take our conversation for instance, I mean, without you I would just be talking to myself- and who would want to read about that? I mean, I wouldn't, and I wrote it!

"You know something, you're right!" Zane took a deep breath and made his way back to the couch in front of his puny. . . "Easy!" alright fine, in front of his adequately sized TV. "You do need me. A story must be driven by its character's actions...." Zane opened up the drawer under his coffee table and took out a pad of paper and a pen. As he wrote, a huge grin spread across his entire face-shadowing his eyes. With pen to paper his hand wrote in a flurry: The writer didn't know what was going on, or when he had somehow lost control of his own story. But the sad truth was unfolding before him as he typed about his own pathetic situation.

Hey, wait! What are you doing?!?! You can't do that, this is my story!

Zane paid no attention to what the writer was saying. His hand kept scribbling every thought that came into his head. The writer didn't know what to do. He stared blankly at the screen. He suddenly felt a measure of fear churning in his stomach. His hands were sweating, and his mind raced, but his fingers typed on as fast as they could (which wasn't very fast at all).

Stop! Please Stop! I. . . . I never took a typing class! It's not my fault I type slowly! I just. . . . Quit it!

The fear that was bubbling inside was now clearly written across the writer's face. He finally understood the powerlessness of his situation. As he sat there typing furiously, he wondered how long this cold possibly go on for, and how far Zane was willing to take it.

"Oh just wait," Zane said. "You know how thrillers are. . . . There is always a surprise ending." He could not smile any wider if he tried, as it was, his lips were spread so far they nearly cut his face in two.

Suddenly it all became to unmistakably clear to him. Tears began to well up in his eyes as the writer finally realized what had just happened. The narration of his own life swam around inside his own mind and with it the laughter of a monster that he himself had helped to create. "Oh no. . . ." he thought to himself. "It's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE."


Genre: Thriller
Setting: At home
Character: Writer/Storyteller