November 24, 2012

The Curse






A beast was born on a cold winter dawn of the 10th of December. The newborn lay combating the ruthless unforgiving wild amidst thorns and bramble in the outskirts of a small village. It bellowed its first sound into the world which was a deafening howl that echoed and thistled through the wild growth - letting its presence known. Mortal existence around the affair heard and felt it. Goose bumps could be sensed erupting on calm skins. Most of them blamed it on the chill in the air and closed their windows. An intolerable pity dawned when no human could recognize the wonder that had just landed amongst them. Because a wonder was beyond their conceivable beliefs and nurturing, the phenomenon was brushed aside as a mischief of the silly North wind.

The beast entered the village in shadows and sensed fear in every corner. The animal inside the creature was fed off the abhorrence of the civil. His vicious talons and hypnotic gaze was discomfort at an arm’s length. A misfit. An outcast. With no past and a non existent future, he toiled. It was the beast’s curse to not know what he could achieve. The curse that brought him here. He could have been an idea at the most. Or a figment of the village idiot’s imagination that no one wanted to fructify. The truth was that the beast was sinister. He was like a bad painting hidden behind drapes. A painting that revealed too much and absorbed the onlooker’s engrossment. It made the audience too uncomfortable within their own skins. It was cursed!

The fact that he was born to reign was forever kept from him. He had the invincible power to do whatever pleased him. The village knew this even before he was born. There were stories told at bedtime of a beast so vicious that he could rid a soul of its will to exist. Children were threatened to never share these stories outside their rooms. Every kid grew up with the story buried in his heart and never uttered a word about it. The beast grew up smelling this fear and never questioning it. He was doomed to live in the darkness and never realize his capacity to conquer. He toiled away his youth earning for his daily meat. Earning for himself. He lived for himself and wanted no more. 

As time passed by, the talons lost their shine. The hypnotic gaze faded and gradually in the village’s fear the beast was tamed.