This is a short story I initially wrote, as a response to some ideas I was toying with at the time and concepts I wanted to explore. This is a conversation between two men seeking shelter in a cave during a snow storm, or is it more?
Frankenstein doesn’t care if your dead.
Once, in the cold dead of winter in the frozen North, I sought shelter from a blinding blizzard in a small cave. I was not the only one.
Who are you? he will ask. I will tell him who I am.
I can remember his features being cold and white, white as the blizzard screaming around us. His hair is matted and black, so thin you can see his head underneath it. On his neck are two scars on either side, almost black in color. Wearing a large ragged robe and the most wretched pieces of canvas as shoes. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by the cold in the least, humming to himself in the silence of the cave. He stood twice my size and could easily crush me. I can see scars from stitches running up and down his arms.
Who are you? I will ask, timidly. His response will haunt me. He will tell me he is death.
After a long silence I feel compelled to continue our conversation.
Where are you from? I will ask, trying not to make eye contact. He will tell me he is from the grave and smirk.
Seeing that he was no normal man, I will change my tactic. I try to ask him about the weather but he interrupts me.
Do you know your parents? he will ask me. Staring at me with two milky eyes, filled with veins.
I will tell him that I do and ask why he would ask something like that and tell me that he is death?
He will introduce himself to me and tell an amazing story about death, rebirth, and confusion.
I will realize he is telling the truth.
He will ask me if a man brought to life by another man was the work of god?
I won’t respond and only shake my head.
Seeing that he seemed to be a wise man, I will turn the tables and ask him something worth not answering. Why are we here?
He will tell me that I am here because two people had sex one night and that he is here because of man’s insatiable urge to be that which he thinks most to be.
That won’t be the response I was hoping for.
Then I will ask him how he feels about the world today.
He will laugh at me and tell me that even the undead are unsure of the world.
I will laugh, and ask him why he fears fire as he does?
He will mumble something about being burned to death and stop talking.
Then he will ask me a question that defines the word taboo. He will ask me if I would kill God if I had the chance, seeing how the world really was?
I will flail about in my mind, searching for the best way to turn this question around and only come up with what is that supposed to mean?
He will ask me another question to try and elaborate at what he means. Was the man that created him a type of God because he created life from death, and did he therefore kill his God when he killed the man that created him?
I will try to compare this supposed remaker of men to a father or a mother and realize that this is not a fair comparison and quiet myself for a bit.
Having thought for sometime I answered both his questions. Yes, this man that made him was like a God, but no I would not kill god if I met him.
He will chuckle and ask why I wouldn’t kill god? and then imply that I was some kind of zealot.
I will try to explain myself. I will tell him that I would not kill God because God was already dead. He will grin ear to mangled ear.