The Sum of Mankind (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 7 & Finale)

For a brief moment in time, Sabin was happy.  Then he learned that his family line was going to come to an end, and he met his last descendant, a woman named Olivia, named in honor in someone who had been a family friend, as far as anyone knew at that point.

     

Olivia was vivacious, charming, beautiful, but if anyone noticed they would have to have looked closely, since she hid herself from the world, and if Sabin ever found out why he was courteous enough not to mention it, and he never forced her to change a thing, accepting her exactly as he found her, and he wondered, eventually, if he would have loved her as she was, if he had not gone looking for her, if he had not intended to use her, and if all this meant perhaps he was exactly as his brother had always feared, and he put all that aside when she became pregnant, was surprised that was even possible, and when the child was born, and it was not a monster, they named him Henry, and that was when Sabin knew he had done something wrong, and he exited both their lives, and that’s why Henry adopted his mother’s name for his own, why he grew up answering to Henry Grenoville, and all the more ignorant of his origins.

     

From afar Sabin watched this family, its struggles and its triumphs, watched as Olivia grew sick with the cancer that would kill her, a cancer he wondered if he might have given her, the impossible trade for the life he had somehow given her.  He watched as Henry grew, telling himself time and again he should have no part in rearing, in guiding, in anything at all, and then the day came in which Henry entered Sabin’s life of his own accord, ignorant of everything he should have known, of everything Sabin could never tell him, but felt compelled to all the same.

     

The years advanced as they always did and Henry grew older, just as Victor had, and Sabin stayed exactly as he had been for two hundred years, and not for the first time he wondered if there was a reason for any of it, or if it was just blind chance and the best he could ever have asked to make of it was the best he could make of it.  He wanted to tell Henry all his secrets.  He wanted to explain.  He wanted a reckoning.  He chose not to, time and time again.  It wasn’t his place, he decided.  He watched as a new Oliver entered Henry’s life.  He remembered that all these people knew or suspected as much as Sabin himself knew or suspected, and had chosen the same paths for just as long.  He poured over the diaries, the books of Victor Frankenstein, trying to find answers, and of course there were none, even though Sabin understood better than anyone what they were.  But that was life.  Sometimes meaning is meaningless.  And maybe that was the point.  He had made conscious choices for however many lifetimes he might be said to have compiled, and he wondered if they had been the right ones, if he had hurt more people than he had helped, hurt the ones that mattered, such as his brother, how his failure to reconcile with him had been a sin for which he could never be absolved, if that was the sum of his life, his judgment, the sum of mankind itself, why he had exiled himself to an embassy of shadows…

     

One day he stopped Oliver Row and asked for a conversation.

     

“I’m new at this, you understand,” said Oliver Row.

     

“That’s okay,” he replied.  “So am I.”

    

“Where would you like to begin?” said Oliver Row.

     

“Right now,” he said.  “This very moment.  I would like to understand it.  I would like to know if I can.  I have decided it’s not important if anyone else does.  Maybe it was a decision I made a long time ago.  Maybe it was a decision I made when my eyes opened again, all those years ago.”

     

“That is a wise decision,” said Oliver Row.

    

“You’re much easier to talk to than I ever imagined,” he said.

    

“Did it ever occur to you to try?” said Oliver Row.

    

“No,” he said.  “I suppose I didn’t.  It just never occurred to me.  I thought it was a different story for so very long.”

    

“The exact nature of my work is something I myself am just coming to grips with,” said Oliver Row.  “Suppose we can help each other.”

    

“I never understood what you were, until now,” he said.  “Perhaps a guardian angel.  I thought you were something else.”

    

“Everyone needs something like that,” said Oliver Row.  “Some more than others.”

    

“I tried to fill the role myself, over the years,” he said.  “I’m not sure I was so successful.  Might have misinterpreted the task.”

     

“I think you got it,” said Oliver Row.

    

“How is he?” he asked.  “I mean, is he okay?  Is he going to be okay?”

     

“I think he will,” said Oliver Row.  “But then, everyone has their struggles.  It can’t be helped, really, if you think about it.”

     

“I suppose you’re right,” he said.  “I never thought of it that way.  Which is a little bizarre, given.”

     

“You’re probably right,” said Oliver Row.  “Listen, I think there’s at least one thing I can put to rest for you.  She forgave you.  She understood.  She always knew the assignment.  You have to, in this line of work.”

     

“Thank you,” he said.  “That means a lot.  I don’t think I was, ah, quite prepared, to hear that.  I will need some time to process that.”

     

“Take your time,” said Oliver Row.

    

“Sometimes I’ve thought I’ve nothing but time,” he said.

    

“Funny how life works,” said Oliver Row.  “It’s going to be okay.”

    

“I think so,” he said.

And the years continued.

A Secret History (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 6)

From the diary of Victor Frankenstein:

 

December 31, 1798

My brother died, today.  I’m told it would be better to pretend as if he never existed.

 

July 31, 1802

After several years at this game I’ve decided that was terrible advice, and so filled this diary with all my precious memories of him.  Then I scratched it all out.  Then I wrote it again.  Then I scratched it out again.  I made another copy.  Started over.  Threw it out.  I am somewhat conflicted over this matter.

 

April 2, 1810

In the midst of my studies I came upon curious information, which started me thinking.  I can bring him back. 

 

January 18, 1818

I did as I planned and it turned out to be a terrible idea.  It wasn’t him.  It wasn’t him at all.  I’ve spent the past several years in recompense, and it wasn’t nearly enough.  In the end I had to fake my death, and I’m not sure he knows or cares.  I wrote the whole thing down again.  I may have shared my story with some poets.  There may be multiple versions of this horror.  I have started my diary anew.  I have started it and scratched through it and started it again many times.  How many versions exist?  Am I still the same man I was when he died, or did I change as well?

 

June 8, 1824

The years continue their descent, as do I.  I’ve started my life over so many times I keep new diaries to track each new life, and they’re all lies.  Finally I can admit that.  I confess I’m no longer quite certain I know who I am, what my name is today.  I wonder where this all ends.

 

November 26, 1843

I attempted to collect all the diaries from where I discarded them, even amongst the very trash heaps, and I can find none of them.  There can be only one explanation, that he’s taken them all into his possession.  I don’t think he cares what effect this has on me.  He means to control my legacy.

 

May 1, 1864

If you must know, my name these days is Grenoville, and that is only because I have learned, recently, that I had a son, at some point, a new member of this strange family, of which I was unaware for the duration of his formative upbringing, and yet he knows of me, as if he knows my true face, and I assume this is because my brother took the liberty of informing him, that and the dogged pursuit of Oliver Row, who wants some form of justice, the nature of which eludes me in my advancing age, that and a great many other things. 

 

September 12, 1871

I met him, again, had a whole conversation with him.  We discussed many things.  I mean my brother, not my son.  I never had the courage.  My brother has pursued a similar course to mine, over the years, including the adoption of aliases.  As I sat talking to him I wondered if he remembered his name, if the point of this occasion was to provoke me into stating it.  In truth I’m not sure I do, either.  I am an old man, and there’s no use denying it.  I sometimes wonder, now, if the things I record in here are anymore the truth than what I cross out and attempt to set straight a second and third, fourth, fifth, however many times it takes.  I wonder if my brother reconstructs them, rewrites them with all the words left in, and what a confusing affair it would be to read, whomever tackled such a task ending up as confused as I myself have become.  I suppose it would be amusing.  There are authors who believe that’s the way their readers want to be entertained, I suppose.  Never quite a straight line.  Cleverness for its own sake, perhaps.  It’s not my affair.

 

February 23, 1875

I don’t know why I continue to write in this thing.  I had a thought the other day, and didn’t jot it down, and so I forgot it, and that’s what my life is, now, very far from what it once was, what I imagined to be a clever mind with no boundaries, capable of anything, and then of course I did just that and have regretted it ever since.  I don’t know how many people are honest enough to admit such things.  Perhaps, if they’re lucky, when they’re as old as I am.  If they remember what they regret.  If they remember to regret. 

 

January 12, 1876

I saw him again.  I had to remind myself, this time.  Didn’t remember his face.  Because of his unusual nature he doesn’t age, and I do.  The body died a great many years ago, after all, and he has been living on borrowed time ever since.  Tried to shoot him, this time, but couldn’t lift the pistol.  Don’t know why I have the thing.  A small comfort.  I don’t know whose time he borrows.  Perhaps mine.  The skin is obviously a problem, but he seems to have worked around it.  Walks stiffly, but he gets around.  We’re the same, at the very least, again, for the first time in a very long time.  All told he does it better.  I find myself somehow jealous.  He dresses better.  I was never able to determine how he ended so much smarter.  I remember, now, if I remember my brother at all, to have been a dullard.  Maybe that’s just what I have to tell myself.  Maybe it’s what I always told myself, why I felt so guilty when he died.  But there are so many things I don’t remember, now, that I perhaps recorded in prior versions of this diary, that he stole, along with so much else.  What I gave him.  Let’s be honest for one brief moment, shall we?

 

January 18, 1878

Thought I’d go for a walk.  Ran into him.  My son, I mean.  At least I think it was.  I imagine it was.  Very different fellow.  Or maybe exactly the same.  I don’t suppose I’d know the difference, at this point.  I don’t suppose I care.  Perhaps that’s the true curse of this life.

A Countess by Night (Monster/Frankenstein, Chapter 5)

The golden age of cinematic horror solidified the idea of the monster by its outward appearance, and further justified this approach by separating the component parts in the popular consciousness from mad scientist creator only responsible for the inception of the monster, and of course the rampaging monster itself, which is to say, Victor Frankenstein receded into history, and the monster took on a name, Frankenstein itself, monster assuming the full mantle.

In the original chronicle of the story, monster is a surprisingly intelligent, even sympathetic creature, wounded by the pathos of creation for creator, forever scorned despite an exhilarating chase sequence deep into the heart of the arctic unknown, where both figures recede into history, the suggestion being the brute forms used by creator reverted to nature in the most literal sense despite all impossible potential, story of mankind in a nutshell.

But the truth, as is often stated, is often stranger than fiction.  I should know.

    

In the 19^th century it was still possible to discover the unnatural, before the natural world was tamed by science, was still possible for science itself to discover the impossible, so that the arcane blended the worlds of science and fantasy, monsters stalked the earth, and the naturalists plumbed the depths of reason to tame it in our blessed besotted utopia of today.  This is to say, where there were those who pursued vampires, there were colleagues who sought other treasures, and the first of my line came into being, the first Oliver Row, a name given to all those whose adoption of the role forever cursed them to stalk the earth alongside monsters, to understand their intentions.  We knew where our monster went, after the arctic, knew the aliases he assumed, and when he emerged as a figure cloaked in mystery known as Sabin, a mere academic, we were not misled, as was the rest of the world.  We followed him closely.

     

We followed him all the way to the Embassy of Shadows, a clever name given to an institution the rest of the world hallowed, and I am not here today to dispel its reputation by identifying it further.  We worried that our Sabin had a sinister plot of revenge against a world that could never understand him, common pablum that I grew ashamed to peddle, and so one day I revealed the truth to Sabin’s descendent, Henry Grenoville.

     

Now, some stories begin roughly, and to read further the reader must have patience that there will be some reward later, better writing, a point even, some secret to justify the pittance of faith in such transitory wonder, an allegory perhaps, a reflection of the real world, something that can’t be spoken of openly but needs saying all the same, otherwise later generations will lose all respect for us.

    

Perhaps, then, Sabin and Henry and myself are not all the players worth knowing in this piece, or the story sketched so lightly to this point it has hardly been worth considering.  What has Sabin been doing all this time as our Henry wonders at this strange introduction?  How does the rest of the world see him?  Does the world see him at all?  Or is all this delusional fiction, a fever dream best left unremembered in moments?

     

Sabin’s reputation was as Henry had perceived it, an ogre of a man if not in appearance alone then by reputation, and this would be the mark of the villain in our times, an irony in our rush to redefine refinement of perception, to repair the injustices and shallow natures of the past, how we have come to define evolution not only mankind’s past but its necessary intellectual future, as if all our collected thought has come to nothing more than what we need to overcome.

     

And yet Sabin was tall, taller than usual, and his features rough, his manners imposing, no concessions to observers, no attempt to pacify his peers.  In earlier eras his height alone would have given him privileges, and yet in our suspicions of inherited impressions, we have acknowledged our genius for interpretation, given preference to those who ask for our attention, and suspicion to those who seek to avoid it, regardless of their social status, and in fact actively encourage misperception of such status at our convenience.  Such is the advancement of agendas in our time, however we can bend such minds to our aims, however easy it might be to flatter, all of us bent low in our courtly pleasures.

     

So what of our Sabin?  An academic, resplendent in his offices, the shaper of young minds, culling attitudes beyond the scope of the grades and degrees of the day, an authority figure to be scorned and adored, central in his placement at the head of the room where all eyes must drift toward for as long as the clock demands, a notebook or tablet recording what might be useful a few months later, when such soft tyranny ends, his true influences known by the clubs he runs, the visits he encourages for apprehensive scholars, the positions he stakes, the memories he will inhabit for years to come, the last time many future citizens will have been held in thrall by the suggestion of necessity before some form of income enticement fills their days, their opinions now cultivated by politicians hungry for a vote and parties eager for power.

     

No, Sabin’s power isn’t in a position but where his power leads, and where he cannot be swayed he would be hated, and this is how he becomes a monster in today’s world, the image of the golden age become reality in the minds of those who need such belief, who will adhere to the ideals of those with such deep yearning for power.  And Henry’s antipathy directed not by outward appearance but cultivated carefully by society, something Sabin is all too willing to play into.

     

Why?  I am dying as I ponder these things, the end of my involvement clear to me, my ineffectiveness, my impotence.  It is only now that I see these things clearly, and perhaps the cruelty of it, the whole history of my line, how I too was manipulated, used as a pawn, a patsy, the invisible fingers of the assassin.  Regardless of a reconciliation between Sabin and Henry, their roles played out already, the effect of history already crushing them under its heel, passing them by, steady in its march onward, bent in shapes by those intent to guide it, or at least believe they do, which is what makes them so dangerous, so sure of their right, the justice of their intentions, their anger when they fail, their wrath, their envy, and their retribution, and their utter ineffectiveness when they finally win power, because of course then they have no idea what to do with it.

     

No, you know everything you need to already.  This is, as all these monster stories always are, a tragedy, and that’s all you need to know, the stumbling mad blindness of it, the jerking steps toward reconciliation, seldom witnessed, never sought, always met with suspicion, forgotten, dismissed as impossible ideal, considered backward in that incessant march onward, always believing there’s some grand discovery just over the next horizon, wondering if it would all be better without us, because “us” will always include those not wanted on the voyage, the aftermath of the apocalypse, always occurring somewhere in some slight manner and ready to be interpreted however conveniently by those stepping loosely along the way, careful not to slip, and if they do, to find their footing again…

     

And I wonder about myself, how pointless, and yet how ecstatic I am to have experienced it at all, to have been here and seen all the sinew and connective tissue, to see it exhumed all over again, denied in all its splendor in the interests of leaving something for another generation to puzzle over, the next iteration of the same story and, I don’t know, another dazzling triumph that will look like abject failure in slightly different light, an abomination, the eternal abyss, a direct manifestation of our real fears, the face of doubt, the old inadequacy of the race.

     

I really did set out to write something different, you know.