The Monster On The Bed

Each night when Agarok’s mum and dad told him to go across to sleep, he’d start begging to be allowed to stay up just a little while longer. It wasn’t that he was actually all that interested in sitting in the back of the closet with the others watching the dustmites play all evening, but he really, really, didn’t want to go under the bed.

“But you must,” his mum would say firmly, and push him out of the closet, and there he would be, forced to crawl under the bed and stay there all night.

It was pointless telling himself that he was a brave monster and that nothing would happen to him. Each night when the door opened and the Boy fell into the bed above his head, he’d retreat to the far corner by the wall, and huddle there squeaking with terror and misery.

The Boy would sometimes ask about the squeaking, and his dad, the Man, would reply in his huge, booming voice that it was only the bed settling. But sometimes the Boy would demand that the Man look under the bed to check, and those were the worst nights of all.

Though Agarok knew well enough that the Man couldn’t see him – the adult Manpeople couldn’t see monsters unless the monsters allowed themselves to be seen – he would cower in abject terror, tentacles wrapped around himself, his eye spots covered up tight. But even then he could imagine it, the huge flat face with the two moist, swivelling orbs that served as eyes glared around under the bed. Then he’d be forced to lie perfectly still while the Boy begged the Man to read some story or other, and the Man would, usually, comply.

Agarok hated these stories most of all. They were always horrifying tales of the Manpeople and their doings, where they would steal and rob each other, or trick other creatures, often poor innocent monsters, perhaps like himself. And always the tale would end with the Manpeople coming out the victors, instead of being punished as they so richly deserved to be.

And then the Boy would usually fall asleep, and the Man, with a sigh of relief, would go away, leaving Agarok to lie shivering with fear in the dark, with perhaps only a dustmite or two for company, the horror stories he’d just heard playing around in his head. Sometimes it would be well past midnight before he could fall asleep.

It was even worse on the nights when the Boy wouldn’t sleep. Agarok would be forced to lie perfectly still, shivering with fear, as the creature above him – the thickness of a little wood and mattress away – turned and tossed and muttered. Sometimes he wished he could cry out with his fear, but he couldn’t even do that, because the Boy might hear – and Agarok’s tentacles shivered with terror at the thought of what would happen then.

Even his parents noticed that something was wrong. “Agarok,” his mum said, “your tentacles are wilting, and your integument is losing its shine. What’s wrong?”

“Please don’t make me sleep under the bed,” Agarok begged. “I can’t take it any longer.”

But each time he said this, his mum would grow stern, and her eye-spots would darken. “Now, Agarok,” she said, “you’re a big monster now, old enough to know better than to be afraid of the dark. You know Boys don’t really exist.”

“But,” Agarok protested once or twice, before he realised it was useless, “they do exist. Every night he’s there, right on top of the bed, and I can hear him.”

“What did I say just now?” his mum replied. “Your dad always says your imagination is going to be the end of you. Now stop dithering and go under bed, and not one word out of you.”

“Your mum and I do deserve some time to ourselves, you know,” his dad would say mildly, glancing up from his monsterpaper. “How was school today anyway? Your grades were terrible last time.”

But Agarok couldn’t care less about school, because that was tomorrow and right now he’d have to go back under the bed, and that was the most frightening thing in the universe. And his grades were the last thing on his mind as he crawled slowly out of the closet and across the bedroom floor.

Not that school was any better either, because none of the other monsters was interested in making friends with Agarok, and because he really wasn’t interested in the subjects the teachers taught anyway. He’d been asking his parents to send him to another school for months and months now, but they never did.

“It’s the best school,” his dad said. “I went to it, and so did my father, and it’s easy enough to make friends anyway, if you only try.”

This was, of course, ridiculous as advice, and utterly useless, so Agarok stayed lonely, and the lonelier he got the less anyone wanted to be his friend, because he was lonely, and because he was such a sorry little monster they didn’t even want to make fun of him.

Maybe if he’d had friends, he thought sometimes, he could tell them about the Boy, and they’d give him some suggestions about how to cope. Or maybe they’d make fun of him, so it was maybe better that he didn’t have friends, after all.

Tonight, at first, things seemed to have gone better than usual. Normally, when Agarok went under bed, there were always noises from outside the room, voices and banging and hooting and other signs of the dreaded Manpeople. Agarok could always hear them clearly, though his parents insisted they didn’t exist, and so had his teacher the one time he’d dared mention them in class.

“We’re here to talk about studies, Agarok,” she’d said, tapping the desk with her tentacle tips to express her irritation, “not to discuss whatever trashy horror novel you’ve been reading in your spare time. So let’s get on with class.” And she’d told him to write an essay on his best friend, and submit it by the weekend.

He didn’t have any friends, and so he hadn’t even started writing the essay, and the weekend was two days away.

Anyway, tonight there was total quiet, with no Mannoises, and Agarok hoped the Boy would stay away and he’d have an undisturbed night’s sleep for once. He’d even found a few dustmites to play with, and after laughing a bit at their antics had actually fallen asleep and dropped into a nice dream.

In the dream he was in a land with orange skies and purple grass, and monsters of all sizes and shapes were gathered around him. They weren’t making fun of him, though, or looking angry; they were cheering him and calling him their saviour, the one they had always been waiting for.

“Saviour from whom?” he asked.

“From the Manpeople, of course,” they said. “You are the One who will defeat the Manpeople.”

Agarok had opened his mouth-gash to protest that he wasn’t the one that they were looking for, that he was actually terrified of the Manpeople, when he suddenly realised that this wasn’t true. He remembered suddenly that he wasn’t afraid of the Manpeople at all, that he could make them disappear with a snap of his tentacles, and he’d just begun to swell himself up with a mighty sense of accomplishment when there was a noise like the sky – or a very large sheet of tarpaulin – being ripped apart, and all the monsters began shrieking in abject terror.

“The Manpeople,” they screamed. “Agarok the Saviour, help us! The Manpeople are coming!”

Then Agarok raised his tentacles and snapped them together, but it didn’t seem to help the monsters. They fell to the ground in terror, and the more he snapped, the more they screamed and cried, and the orange sky began to grow black.

Agarok woke to find himself in darkness – the familiar darkness under the bed. But though the dream had ended, the weeping had not, and he realised it came from above him.

The thickness of a little wood and mattress away, the Boy was sobbing.

This was beyond astonishing to Agarok. That such a fearsome creature as the Boy could even feel sorrow was inconceivable; that he could lie awake crying his heart out was something that the young monster hadn’t even thought about. It was so strange that he decided he was imagining it at first.

Then, in a move so astonishingly bold he afterwards couldn’t believe he’d actually done it, he decided to have a look.

Oh, he wasn’t that rash. He didn’t come right out into the middle of the floor where he would be totally exposed. No, he just crawled to the side of the bed, able to shoot back in if necessary, and raised a few tentacles with uncovered eyespots just above the edge.

Yes, the Boy was sobbing. He was sobbing and he was talking to himself, and what he was saying was something about his parents not caring about him a whit, about the monsters under the bed, and that he was lonely in school and without a friend in the world.

He was lying with his back to Agarok, facing the wall, his bony, angular shoulders – so unlike a monster’s smooth curves – shaking. This was fascinating to the young monster; so fascinating that he decided he needed a closer look.

You know what he did, don’t you? He crawled fully out from under the bed. Then he crawled on to the bed. And then he crawled to the Boy and nudged him gently with his tentacles.

And the Boy was so miserable that he didn’t even scream.

********************************************************

 Agarok’s class teacher gave him a failing grade on the essay on his best friend. “It’s well-written,” she sniffed. “But I wanted an essay on a real best friend, not a figment of your imagination. A Boy, indeed. Whatever will you come up with next?”

And of course you know what the Boy’s own teacher said about his essay, as well. Also, naturally, it’s perfectly predictable what their parents said. We won’t bother talking about that here.

The two of them don’t care, though. They’re planning to run away from home together tomorrow.

If you see them, don’t give them away, will you?

Copyright B Purkayastha 2016

[Image Source]

Nanobots: North Korea's Latest Terror Weapon

By Juno Kuttigranchu

With additional reporting by N. Eropeetu.

Rueters, 1 April 2016, Gaziantep, Turkey.

In a startling and deeply worrisome development, the government of Turkey and the pro-western moderate Free Syrian Army (FSA) leadership made a joint statement about the North Korean troops now known to be actively aiding the dictatorial regime of Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

The involvement of two North Korean units, Chalma 1 and Chalma 2, in the Syrian civil war has been known for some time, and condemned by the US and its NATO allies. However, until now the thinking in the West has been that the North Korean troops are ancillaries supporting the regime offensive against moderate rebels and other forces working to overthrow Assad’s tyrannical regime, just like his Hizbollah and Iranian allies. The latest revelations by the FSA and the Turkish government, however, put the situation in a whole new light.

“Two weeks ago,” FSA spokesman Colonel Kazzab al Khara said, “the Chalma 2 unit was visited, in top secret and in the middle of the night, by a senior North Korean officer who flew in from Pyongyang via China and Russia. Though we have not yet been able to identify him with certainty, indications are that it was the head of the North Korean nanowarfare division, Colonel General Bang Yoo Bak himself.” 

In this file photograph , General Bang (in glasses) is standing behind Kim Jong Un

A NATO source told Rueters that the nanowarfare division is an ultra-top-secret part of the North Korean security apparatus and reports directly to Kim Jong Un himself, not to the head of the North Korean People’s Army or to the defence minister. “It’s almost a parallel military service,” he said, “and has its own personnel, budget and power structure, separate from the rest of the NKPA.”

“Our spies within Assad’s army,” Colonel al Khara continued, “have informed us that Bang brought with him a package which he personally delivered to the officer in command of Chalma 2, Major Song Gon Rong. This package is strongly suspected to contain the latest North Korean weapon, which Kim is now about to unleash on the world.”

As to what this weapon might be, the Turkish government spokesman, Yalancı Bokoglu, said that NATO sources have been aware for some time that North Korea has been seeking to create nanobots which are a fusion of microscopic robots and bacteria. “Defector statements and satellite evidence agree that Kim’s scientists have been working for years at secret underground laboratories in the hills near Chosin reservoir, and testing their results on labour camp inmates. In fact, so important is this effort that as far as we can tell the entire North Korean nuclear weapons programme is merely a way to divert international attention from it. Apparently, they have achieved enough success that they feel confident enough to use it against the democratic world for the first time.”

“Kim,” the NATO source said, “knows that he can’t use his nuclear weapons without his country being wiped out in retaliation. But he can use these nanobots in sneak attacks, with not just a probability, but almost total certainty, of being able to get away with it. Therefore, he is flexing his muscles.

“While we have not yet been able to discover exactly what these nanobots are like, we do know that they are meant to take over and modify the subjects’ behaviour, to make them act exactly as though they are remote controlled. In effect, the idea is to turn them into biological robots who can be made to commit crimes, acts of sabotage and terrorism, without and even actively against the person’s own natural inclinations.”

A microbiologist at Johns Hopkins, who requested anonymity since she is not authorised to speak to the media, told Rueters how this nanobot would act in the body.

“Almost certainly,” she said, “the nanobots would be inserted into the subject’s body via food or water, whereupon they would burrow through the intestinal wall into the blood, like many parasites. They would then flow through the bloodstream until they reached the brain, whereupon they would settle in the tissues of the cerebral cortex – the grey matter – and begin replicating. Since they are part bacteria, in fact little more than mechanised bacteria, this will not take long. Only one or two nanobots would be enough to completely infest the subject’s brain in only a day or two, and as long as they didn’t send out any signals, the subject would not even know that there was anything wrong.

“Once the bacteria are activated – and they could either be preprogrammed to act in a certain way or more likely by radio signals, which the skull cannot block out - they would begun sending out electrical impulses which would force the host brain to act exactly as the bacteria dictate.

“It sounds like science fiction, but there’s nothing at all impossible about it. Several microorganisms already exist which routinely affect the host’s behaviour patterns, from rabies to Toxoplasma and Trypanosoma.”

Asked about possible countermeasures to the new North Korean bioweapon, the Johns Hopkins microbiologist said it was almost impossible. “Since after reaching the brain, the nanobot bacteria will no longer be travelling around the body, they can’t be detected by a blood test. In fact, there’s no way to detect them without a biopsy of the brain tissue, and mass intra-cranial biopsy of millions of people is obviously impossible.”

Colonel al Khara said that this was an act of biological warfare by Kim Jong Un against what he called the “civilised world”, and could not have been done without the active cooperation of both Assad and his Russian allies.

“The Russian so-called ‘humanitarian aid’ to Syrian civilians,” he said, “is being deliberately infected with these nanobots, and more are being airdropped over sources of water in areas outside regime control. In areas under the control of Assad, the afflicted people will be compelled to demonstrate and even fight in support of the brutal regime. In fact, you can safely assume that all supporters of Assad are controlled by these bacteria. Meanwhile, in areas freed of Assad’s control, the bacteria will infect the civilian population, who will then be at the mercy of Assad and his Russian and North Korean allies.”

Mr Bokoglu said that Assad and Russian president Putin, whose air strikes have, he said, deliberately targeted civilians in order to turn them into “weaponised refugees”, would then compel huge numbers of them, by means of bombardments and air strikes, to migrate into Turkey and seek refuge in Europe. Once they are in Europe, Kim’s nanowarfare division would then, possibly using North Korea’s recently launched satellite, relay radio signals into their brains, causing mass waves of criminal activity, rioting, and terrorism.

“It’s a no-risk act of war by Kim,” Mr Bokoglu said. “It’s almost impossible to bring anything home to him, and in return he would cause a wave of terror across Europe, with huge casualties and a likely rise of anti-refugee sentiment and further weakening and collapse of the European Union, just at the moment at which Turkey is likely to be finally allowed to join.”

Both he and Colonel al Khara emphasised the absolute necessity of overthrowing Assad immediately. “If Assad is gone, there’s no chance of Kim’s weapons finding their way to Turkey and Europe,” they said. “There should be absolutely no hesitation in immediately invading and destroying the regime. Each day we wait is a grave threat to Western civilisation, liberalism and democracy.”

Asked about possible repercussions arising from the large number of likely civilian casualties arising from such an invasion, both spokesmen were unequivocal. “Imagine the terror and suffering of the poor people afflicted with Kim’s nanobots,” they said. “They would be fully aware of what is happening, but unable to control themselves. They would be forced to watch, screaming inside, as they were made to shout slogans in support of their greatest enemy, al Assad, and even vote for him when he holds his next sham election.

“Killing them would be no more than an act of mercy. It would be euthanasia. They would be thanking the bombs and cruise missiles for putting them out of their misery.”

Unfortunately, there seemed to be no great appetite for a regime change invasion among NATO member countries and associates, or from the European Union. “It’s easy to say Assad must be wiped out,” EU spokesman Francois Menteur said in Paris. “But the people he’s infected can keep fighting against us for years or decades afterwards, unless we kill them all. And killing so many people will require a raise in our military budgets which we cannot at this time afford.” Instead, he proposed imposing more sanctions against Syria, Russia and North Korea. “Maybe economic pain will compel them to step back,” he said.

Meanwhile the Johns Hopkins microbiologist had a suggestion. “Improbably enough,” she said, “the radio signals could be blocked out simply by compelling all the refugees to wear tinfoil hats at all times once they are across the Turkish border. Of course, this will have to be rigidly enforced and the refugees supervised at all times to ensure they never take them off, not for a single instant, not even while sleeping or bathing.”

Right wing organisations across Europe have volunteered to supervise the refugees. “Our men,” German Kameradenschaft leader Lügner von Scheisskopf said, “will take full responsibility for ensuring none of them remove the foil hat. If they do, for even one moment, we will...

Read the rest of the article here.

The Death Of Gérard Duval

My name is Gérard Duval, and I am dead.

I know I am dead, though the enemy who killed me is still trying to help, still trying to staunch the bleeding and, if I can understand his language correctly, telling me that it will be all right. I can tell he doesn’t really believe it, and he’s right; I don’t believe it either.

I can’t see the enemy – I can no longer really see anything – just a silhouette against the night sky, picked out against the background of searchlights and the reflections of exploding shells. Or is it still night? I’m not sure. It could be broad daylight already, and I might be no longer able to tell light from dark.

All I can feel is the struggle to breathe, dragging each gulp of air down into my lungs, and the cold. Even the pain has ebbed, giving way to the cold spreading over my body, from my midsection where the enemy stabbed me.

I still don’t remember exactly how that happened. I can remember the patrol across no man’s land, the sudden shelling, the desperate retreat. I heard a shell coming over, and threw myself down into the nearest shell hole for cover. I saw a shadow, moving, felt a hard blow in my gut, and then I was lying with my face in the mud and a silhouette of a helmeted enemy scrambling away from me on the other side of the hole.

Just this morning, I’d seen the outline of a helmet like that against the dawn sky, the flattened top and the flared skirts to the sides, peeking over the parapet of a trench; and I’d squeezed my trigger and the helmet had disappeared. I wonder if it had been this particular one of the enemy I’d shot at, and, if only I’d killed him, I might not now be dead.

It’s pointless thinking about that. There are thousands upon thousands of the enemy, and if it wasn’t this one, it might have been another. I’ve killed many of them, and one man couldn’t possibly kill them all.

One man shouldn’t even have to try.

I can feel wetness under me. I can’t tell any longer if it’s blood or just water, if it’s hot or cold. Does it matter? I’m dead anyway.

The enemy holds something to my mouth; water seeps over my tongue. He’s saying something again, explaining, apologising. He sounds young. Maybe he’d be the same age as my brother Jean would have been if only he’d lived to grow up. And if Jean had lived to grow up, he’d probably end in a shell hole, gasping his life out, just like me.

The enemy has unbuttoned my uniform and is trying to bandage me. His hands move lightly over my breast, pressing, trying to undo the damage his knife has done. I can understand enough of his language that, if I could talk, I’d tell him that it doesn’t matter, it’s done, over with. I wish I could see his face, just once.

I wish I could see his face.

I have no hard feelings towards this young man, this part of the enemy. He’s as much to blame for killing me as an earthquake would be, or the cancer, or the cholera which wracks the trenches. It wasn’t he who plucked me from my village, put me in my blue uniform, stuck a rifle in my hand and sent me out to kill. It wasn’t I who took him from his school and put him in his grey uniform, stuck a rifle in his hand and sent him out to kill. I don’t even know if there was any person who was responsible for this; wars, it seems to me, are as inevitable as the tide, and as inexorably sweeps away those of us who are unlucky enough to be in its path.

Right now, in the trenches over on my side, Marcel will be looking anxiously across the wire for me. I can imagine his face, the brow furrowed in dismay, the drooping ginger moustache which he sucks when he’s got a good hand at cards, without even knowing he’s doing it.  Marcel is a good man, a good comrade, and he’ll mourn for me, even though he’s seen a hundred others of us go where I’m going now.

It strikes me that Marcel might be dead, that he might have been blown apart by one of the shells during the bombardment. It’s a startling thought; I’d never imagined I’d survive Marcel. He seems to be one of those who endures forever.

Then, suddenly, it feels a bit better. I’m standing on a hillside. It’s night, but I can recognise this hillside, it’s the one above the old village, and down below me I can see the familiar lights, the flickering lamps in the windows. I can even see my own house, up above the butcher’s. Marie will be getting dinner ready by now, and fretting that I’m so late coming back from the printing works. But it couldn’t be helped, there was the rush order, and I’ve spent all day on it and will be spending all of tomorrow too. I hope I can get home in time to talk to Sophie before she goes to sleep. A daughter needs to catch sight of her father once in a while at least. Next week is her birthday, I remember suddenly. I must get something for her.

I work too hard, Marie keeps saying. But then at least my work is good, honest work, I tell her, work a man shouldn’t be ashamed of doing. A typesetter at a printing works has never harmed anybody.

“Don’t go to sleep yet, Sophie,” I say, walking briskly down the path. It’s a cold night, and I feel myself shivering, and then I’m not shivering anymore.

And now it’s springtime and the sun is shining, and I’m sitting with Marie in the park, and Sophie is dancing on the grass before us, and I see a young man walk up from the river. I know him, I know him well, even though I’ve never seen his face. I get up to welcome him, and he runs to me, and we hug, we hug each other tight, as though we’ll never let each other go.

The sun is shining and we’re comrades, and there’s never been a war, there’s never been a knife in a shellhole and death in the muddy water and a young voice beseeching, apologising. That was a bad dream, and it’s over now, or maybe it never was there at all.

I am Gérard Duval, and I am dead.

**************************************************************

 Note to reader: A few days ago, I’d written a review of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front, in which I’d expressed my admiration of the book. A day or two ago I suddenly thought of a project on the sidelines of my usual writing – a graphic novel of All Quiet, where each page would comprise a painting showing a scene from the book, with narration boxes above and below the image.

Yes, I said painting. Not cartoons/comic strip drawing. That’s not what I intended at all.

Obviously, this would be a major project, which would be fairly pointless unless I could get a publisher to commit to the idea; and I am far from certain it would work even then. However, I am also convinced that it’s a project thoroughly worth doing.

Accordingly, I’ve decided to paint some of my favourite scenes from the book or the next few weeks, as a demo to show what could be done. In these paintings I’ve set some rules for myself, which I intend to adhere to strictly:

1.The paintings will be acrylic and/or gouache on paper only. No other material will be used.

2. The paintings will be brushwork only. I’m not even going to use pencil outlines. There will absolutely be no use of any kind of image manipulation software under any circumstances.

3. I am not going to look for realism but to show (my interpretation of) the what I might call emotion of the scene. It will probably take me out of my comfort zone, but that’s part of what makes it worthwhile.

Accordingly, here’s my painting of the famous scene (from Chapter Nine of All Quiet if I remember right) of Paul Bäumer and the French printer-turned soldier, Gérard Duval, he killed. It’s one of the most powerful bits of anti-war writing ever, and drenched in anger and sorrow.

A thought – if today’s “warriors” had to fight hand to hand, and see the faces of the men they killed, and stay by their sides during their last hours, (instead of, you know, blowing apart video screen images from air conditioned bunkers on the other side of the planet) would the warmongers of the world have such an easy time with their imperialist invasions?

Even if the plan for the graphic novel doesn’t work out, I can get some stories out of it, like the one above. Those who have been reading me for a while will be aware of my love of chronicling the side actors of history; the story of the anonymous refugee, the clerk, the kamikaze, the guard at the concentration camp, the child in a world turned bitter and hostile. And, of course, painting is one of the few ways of reducing stress and depression that I have available to me.

Wish me luck.

Title: Slayer and Slain

[I have chosen this title because, as anyone who’s read All Quiet will be aware, the French soldier wasn’t the only one who died in the shellhole; arguably, something vital in Paul Bäumer died along with him. In fact one might wonder who it was who actually ended up better off afterwards. And accordingly I tried to give them the same expressions of agony and horror.]

Material: Acrylic on Paper.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2016