MicroHorror

I mean, really, with a name like Grendel (Grendel, for crying out loud!), what else could I turn out to be but a freakin’ monster? What was wrong with Jack? Or Bill? Or Tom, Dick or Harry? But no, no nice, normal, regular name for me; instead I get Grendel the Gruesome (well, I added the Gruesome for effect, but you get the idea).

Of course, being seven-foot-tall, with spindly, bent legs, claw hands, a ratty mass of hair, a lumpy, misshapen body and a face that missed being attractive by oh, just a kilometer or two, didn’t help either. And this was when I was still a child, my supposedly “cute years.” Some kids grow like a weed; me, I grew like a deformed, noxious one in some forgotten corner of the devil’s garden. My hygiene wasn’t good either, and the circle of flies that hovered around me all the time didn’t help my popularity in school.

Kids can be so cruel, you know. Calling me horrid names became an art form for them, each brat trying to outdo the previous one. So what could I do? I killed them all on the playground one cloudy afternoon at recess. I mean, they shouldn’t have made fun of me during my awkward adolescence; even a monster has his limits. To hide my crime, I ate as many and much of them as I could hold (they were delicious in a steak tartare sort of way).

Well, school and police authorities are so quick to judge, although as the only one left standing and covered in their blood, I guess the evidence did sort of point toward me, so I took off to hide in the nearby swamps until the scandal blew over and everybody forgot about it.

Which no one did, so I remained in the swamps, growing up alone (except for my nut job of a mother), just another nasty and vengeful young punk with a taste for senseless violence and human flesh. My mother blamed it on the heavy metal music and Internet porn.

One day, while tooling through the swamps, I discovered a fancy castle on the edge of the bog, which turned out to be just full of tasty warriors and handmaidens (I had been working out daily in my room, lots of time on my hands you know, so I was dangerously powerful by then and even taller I think; hygiene and appearance remained about the same). Nighttime was the right time for my little search-kill-and-gorge missions.

I was finally happy for the first time in my life, hitting my stride as a tough young punk (well, tough young punk monster), tasting the good life (pun very much intended), and scaring the hell out of the castle dwellers. I was finally somebody, respected (well, feared) and noticed (actually reviled, but still, some attention is better than no attention after years in the swamp).

Then, just when things were rocking along, this pretty-boy Geat comes striding in and decides to play hero, casting me as the monster in his little melodrama (no surprise there).

So one night as I’m tiptoeing around the sleeping warriors (as best I can tiptoe) and peeking under the handmaidens’ bed clothes, this self-deputized Geat (I prefer to call him Geek), leaps up like some undercover cop and proceeds–now get this–to rip my arm off! (What kind of fighting strategy is that? And this guy is the hero?)

Now if that doesn’t just ruin your day, I don’t know what does, and, get this, while I’m bleeding like crazy, he’s beating on me mercilessly with the bloody stump of my own arm! And they call me a monster.

So there was nothing left to do but run like hell and tell my mother on him before I pass out and boy, will he ever be sorry, because my mother is a real monster.