The following is a piece of creative writing inspired by John Gardner's novel Grendel.
He does not realize that I think—that I moan and groan and
quake and think like everything else moans and groans and quakes and thinks. I live
in the darkness, yes, and I am fearful of the light—bodies upon things upon
bodies clutter my space, but I do think.
I am, therefore I think. No one can deny that I am. Sum.
He thinks
that I am a bloodthirsty creature with no sense, and I admit to the former
allegation but not to the latter. I have sense and I do sense. After all, I am
able to sense his disdain for me. Oh Mother, she is just a savage, she lives
among her bones and her bodies, her massive flesh too dense to be pierced by
intelligent thought, oh Mother.
My son, with his unnatural rage, cavorts with the humans
and drinks their useless blood. Grendel—always wicked, always my son—is blinded
by selfishness.
He is my son, yes, he was born out of my very flesh—created
not in silly god’s image, but rather, in my own image. I carried him, I created
him, though he did not want to be carried or created.
My son is having troubles because he does not understand;
he struggles to make sense of himself and his life just as I struggle to
transport my massive body across this fetid cave.
The bodies surround me, ah yes, here is the blacksmith’s
youngest daughter, and here is the carpenter—such a shame I feasted upon them,
yet I am indifferent to their half-eaten stares. I began the task of devouring
them, then grew tired and cast them away.
The humans, like myself, are thinkers, but their thoughts
have reason. Their thoughts have a how and a why and a because. Their thoughts
are carefully planned out, pathetic pattern-makers; as if anything matters. My
thoughts are foreign to reason—the two do not overlap.
I want, I act. I desire, I do. There is no how. There is no why. There is no because.
There is simply a need and the need is fulfilled by any means necessary. There is
simply a small push in what is called the brain, a small twitch of necessity
and that is all that is needed.
There is no reason for reason. Why complicate things further
when things are, by nature, complicated? I only trust the big ideas, the big
needs. Hunger, thirst, jealousy, desire, anger, sadness, and revenge. Anything more
is nothing at all.
Grendel has much to learn.
