Can You Answer Me?

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.