Monsters

Have you ever thought if the monsters exist? I have never thought about it. Although it is a true that I never liked to sleep with the wardrobe’s doors opened and, it is true that sometimes I have looked under my bed before on lying there and falling asleep. Still yet, my rational part always asked how these creatures could exist. Nevertheless, when the light turned off, I imaged an emaciated body on the floor, coming to me, yearning for my death. Once I asked the reason to look under the bed, but… would it be possible that something fell from the roof when everything was dark? Since that moment, I always lie on bed, with my eyes wide open, surrounding by darkness and I cannot stop thinking that there is a huge mouth on the roof, coming closer, wanting to eat me.

Even with all these thoughts, I have never believed that monsters existed… until now. Why do that images come to our minds when we think about that word? Why do we look for in the supernatural? I don’t know, but I do know that they exist. No, don’t look for a creature that drags itself wishing to put an end to our lives. Neither a huge mouth which wishing to eat you. We only have to look around and we will realize that we all surrounding by them, the human beings are the main monsters in this world; remember all the wars that we have been through and that we are still living on, the desire to make suffering to those who are weaker, to those who cannot defenn themselves, the satisfaction that we find in the destruction of our environment, the cheers that the strongest receive after killed another living being.

Human beings are characterized by the rational part. Let me tell you that this is a lie, because there is darkness living in our deep inside, becoming us into monsters. We can want to run away from that darkness, we can fall into it, we can live with it… but it will never disappear because it will always be there, patient, wanting to control us.

Now tell me, what will you do with the darkness that are in your heart? Will you fall into it? Will you run away? It does not matter, just let me tell you one last thing; welcome to the monsters’ world.

 

«El Tigre», William Blake

 

Tigre, tigre, que te enciendes en luz
por los bosques de la noche
¿qué mano inmortal, qué ojo
pudo idear tu terrible simetría?

¿En qué profundidades distantes,
en qué cielos ardió el fuego de tus ojos?
¿Con qué alas osó elevarse?
¿Qué mano osó tomar ese fuego?

¿Y qué hombro, y qué arte
pudo tejer la nervadura de tu corazón?
Y al comenzar los latidos de tu corazón,
¿qué mano terrible? ¿Qué terribles pies?

¿Qué martillo? ¿Qué cadena?
¿En qué horno se templó tu cerebro?
¿En qué yunque?
¿Qué tremendas garras osaron
sus mortales terrores dominar?

Cuando las estrellas arrojaron sus lanzas
y bañaron los cielos con sus lágrimas
¿sonrió al ver su obra?
¿Quien hizo al cordero fue quien te hizo?

Tigre, tigre, que te enciendes en luz,
por los bosques de la noche
¿qué mano inmortal, qué ojo
osó idear tu terrible simetría?

Poema en inglés:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

«Ozymandias», Percy Bysshe Shelley

Conocí a un viajero de una tierra antigua

quien dijo: «dos enormes piernas pétreas, sin su tronco

se yerguen en el desierto. A su lado, en la arena,

semihundido, yace un rostro hecho pedazos, cuyo ceño

y mueca en la boca, y desdén de frío dominio,

cuentan que su escultor comprendió bien esas pasiones

las cuales aún sobreviven, grabadas en estos inertes objetos,

a las manos que las tallaron y al corazón que las alimentó.

Y en el pedestal se leen estas palabras:

«Mi nombre es Ozymandias, rey de reyes:

¡Contemplad mis obras, poderosos, y desesperad!»

Nada queda a su lado. Alrededor de la decadencia

de estas colosales ruinas, infinitas y desnudas

se extienden, a lo lejos, las solitarias y llanas arenas»

Poema en inglés;

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

«My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!»

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away

 

Os dejo este vídeo donde el actor Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) lo lee.

Fuente: Google Imágenes

She

She wanted to fly: extending her arms, feeling the hair on her back and casting herself down from the highest cloud. Travelling through the sky, crossing the stars, tocuhing the moon with the tip of her fingers. Shouting from the top of her lungs, and sweet laughs that turned stellars lights on in the dark night. And she never fell. Flying without destiny, no time, no limits. Just feeling.

But they wanted to constrain her, to make her to bow her head and to listen their voices, echoing between the four walls of her jail. They wanted to put her on a cage, within flames that will never be extinguished, burning her. They wanted to turn all lights off so she could not see anything, she could scream but her voice would never be listened to. They wanted to make her small, burrying her in the subsoil and breaking her bones so she would never be able to rise up.

They wanted to destroy her. They aimed their guns towards her, trying to break her heart. They erased her dreams with a dirty rag and drew tears on her pink cheeks. They crash her ilusions in front of her reyes. They laughed at her if she fell,because they had never known how to stand up.

They wanted to make her fall in love with them, to capture her in their arms and to scracth her with their teeth. Marking another territory on her skin. Proclaming a new victory that had her name. They wanted to dress her and to put her makeup as a doll, so they became in the owners of her time and life. They wanted that she loved them as if they deserved it because their eyes had put on her legs.

But he was more that a broken heart and dreams that were not achieved. She was more than just long and slender legs, or a body hidden under a beautiful red dress. She had her feet on Earth while she thought how to fly above the clouds. And before they could realized, she danced and singed, happy and smiling, over their heads.

She flew every day over her name. She tiptoed over the trees’ branches. She pretended that the clouds were vanished in her hands. She looked up in order to not see her feet that were on the floor. She lived and felt like she was flating on the air. The obstacles were celestial bodies that were on her way.

And they… they were just small points without faces that would never be able to reach her.

The end

He knew that they were close to the Underworld because the mist started to disappear. He realized that the boy was trembling. Was it the right decision? Those traces on the stone told him that it was. The only thing that he had to do was that Radamantis jugded the boy. A chill went thorugh his back when he feels Cerberus’s eyes on him, also, it was showing his sharp teeth. The boy startled and looked at him, worried. He tried to smile, he wanted to let him know that everything was alright… or that was what he wanted to think.

Cerberus’s roars and barks can be listened to the entire Underworld’s entrance. He helped the boy to leave the boat. He couldn’t help but remember the first time that Caronte had left him there all alone and confused. He put his hand on the shoulder’s boy, calling in that way his attention. He smiled again and pointed out the door.

—I’m scared, I shouldn’t have accepted it. I don’t have money. Caronte comes back after many time to take with him the people who do not have money, maybe I should have waited a little longer.

—I’ll go with you if you feel more confident.

The boy doubted for a moment but finally he nodded, with a weak smile. There was something that worried him, maybe it was Cerberus’s agressive attitude, or it could be the boy’s fear itself. He tried to clear his mind while his hands opened the door.

Anything had changed since the last time that he was there: the big courtyard, the rivers, the palace at the background and the thrones. His eyes was on Radamantis, who sat up and came closer. He looked at the boy, who took a step back. It was clear that he wanted to run away.

—I bring another soul, you can judge him.

Radamantis looked at both of them, frowing. He didn’t remember that serious face and neither the tense atmosphere when he was judged.

—Oh, I see. Let’s judge.

He looked at the boy; he was pale and his body started trembling. He realised the tears that starting to fall on his cheeks. His legs faltered and fell on the floor, and at the same time, he asked for help. He looked at Radamantis, which face did not show any emotion. In that moment, the boy took a breath, coming back to Earth. He tried to get up, but his legs did not respond him. Radamantis knelt in order to help him, putting his hands on the boy’s shoulders.

—You have a kind heart… Come on, drink a bit of water.

Radamantis gave him a glass of water. The boy took it with his flickering hands and drank.

—Such a pity that you cannot pay your trip –the glass fell on the floor, breaking into pieces. The boy put his hands on his head-. I condemn you to spend the rest of your days wandering around Lethe’s river, without knowing who you are.

—No!! Wait! Caronte had brung souls that didn’t have money.

—Exactly. Caronte can do it, but who do you think you are to do the same thing? You’re nobody here, you just fullfil a work in order to clean your soul and now your soul is dirty because you have disobeyed the rules… I condemn you to the Tartarus.

The last thing that he saw was that miserable boy looking at him, his  only mistake was to trust him. He didn’t know who he was, neither where he was and what he was thinking of. And, suddenly, he was no longer in that courtyard, but at home, surrounding by his family, whose dead bodies were on the floor, spotted with blood. He saw his hand. He was holding a knife spotted also with that scarlet liquid, and he can watch that boy wandering the Lethe’s edges, without knowing who he was.

—Your sentence is going to be reviving your first trial but, this time, you are going to kill your family, and each time that you look at your knife, you’ll see that poor boy who trusted you, who has been condemned  to the forgotten hell by you.

And he knew it. He would never be in peace. He was condemned to live in that hell forever and ever.

Image by OlliSiponkoski

If you want to read the rest of the short story:

1. The beginning of the end
2. The trial of the end
3. The last act of kindness

Equilibrium

You jump into the void.

That is what you have done your whole life, but you are tired.

You are tired that everything goes wrong while you are walking in zigzag on a thin spider web. If you take a step too soon, everything falls. If the thin thread breaks, everything falls. . Still, you cling to it, believing that it is more a memory than a reality, wondering what your destination is.

Then, you stop and look around. You do not see anything. You are alone. Because, while you were trying to keep your direction, everything has been destabilized. And it leaps into the void before you, like pieces of broken ice becoming into a downpour.

You walk further, but your legs tremble. In that huge void surrounded by silence and darkness, you wonder when you listened to your last heartbeat. And what about the first one? You never realized it when you were alive. You never thought that it could stop. You just keep your way without thinking in nothing else.

Now, it rains. It rains everywhere. But you do not know how to remember the sound of the water. And it falls, with everything that you are, with everything that you were and with what you will never be.

You immerse yourself in the gold rain, you look up and two swords pierce your eyes: the reality. It wakes you up, scratches your face and burns you. You stand there, bleeding and in silence. You are burning; the water burns you and drowns you. The smoke fills your lunges, you breath the dust that is in the air.

You lose yourself within it. It buries you. And you finish even when you have not yet started.