the little green monster -haruki murakami

LINK: the little green monster – haruki murakami

TRIGGER WARNING: obsessive romantic attention, stalking, emotional manipulation, jealousy, threatening, fear and psychological distress, death, violence, disturbing imagery, surreal horror

I read this a few years ago and found this short story to be the best thus far. I’ve read a lot of books from Haruki Murakami, who is one of my favorite authors. His writing style is very unique… and very appealing to those who write introspectively.

Unrequited love and metaphysical dread at its finest worst.

What happens when your inner life, the ugliest and most unhinged part of it, is suddenly visible and audible to someone else? Most people survive because our cruelty remain private from others. Unfortunately, the monster doesn’t have that luxury… and neither does the woman.

“…Madam madam madam, don’t you see? Don’t you see? I’ve come here to propose to you. From deep deep deep down deep down deep. I had to crawl all the way up here up here up. Awful, it was awful, I had to dig and dig and dig. Look at how it ruined my claws! I could never have done this if I meant you any harm, any harm, any harm. I love you. I love you so much I couldn’t stand it anymore down deep down deep. I crawled my way up to you, I had to, I had to. They all tried to stop me but I couldn’t stand it anymore. And think of the courage that it took, please, took. What if you thought it was rude and presumptuous, rude and presumptuous, for a creature like me to propose to you?

But it is rude and presumptuous, I said in my mind. What a rude little creature you are to come seeking my love!

A look of sadness came over the monster’s face as soon as I thought this, and its scales took on a purple tinge, as if to express what it was feeling. Its entire body seemed to shrink a little, too. I folded my arms to watch these changes occurring. Maybe something like this would happen whenever its feelings altered. And maybe its awful-looking exterior masked a heart that was as soft and vulnerable as a brand-new marshmallow. If so, I knew I could win. I decided to give it at try. You are an ugly little monster, you know, I shouted in my mind’s loudest voice – so loud it made my heart reverberate. You are an ugly little monster! The purple of the scales grew deeper, and the thing’s eyes began to bulge as if they were sucking in all the hatred I was sending them. They protruded from the creature’s face like ripe green figs, and tears like red juice ran down them, splattering on the floor.

I wasn’t afraid of the monster anymore. I painted pictures in my mind of all the cruel things I wanted to do to it.  I tied it down to a heavy chair with thick wires, and with a needle-nose pliers I began ripping out its scales at the roots, one by one. I heated the point of a sharp knife, and with it I cut deep grooves in the soft pink flesh of its calves. Over and over, I stabbed a hot soldering iron into the bulging figs of its eyes. With each new torture I imagined for it, the monster would lurch and writhe and wail in agony as if those things were actually happening to it. It wept its colored tears and oozed thick gobs of liquid onto the floor, emitting a gray vapor from its ears that had the fragrance of roses.  Its eyes sent me unnerving glare of reproach at me. Please, madam, oh please, I beg of you, don’t think such terrible thoughts! it cried. I have no evil thoughts for you. I would never harm you. All I feel for you is love, is love. But I refused to listen. In my mind, I said, Don’t be ridiculous! You crawled out of my garden. You unlocked my door without permission. You came inside my house. I never asked you here. I have the right to think anything I want to. And I continued to do exactly that – thinking at the creature increasingly terrible thoughts. I cut and tormented its flesh with every machine and tool I could think of, overlooking no method that might exist to torture a living being and make it writhe in pain.

See, then, you little monster, you have no idea what a woman is. There’s no end to the number of things I can think of to do to you. But soon the monster’s outlines began to fade, and even its strong green nose shriveled up until it was no bigger than a worm.  Writhing on the floor, the monster tried to move its mouth and speak to me, struggling to open its lips as if it wanted to leave me some final message, to convey some ancient wisdom, some crucial bit of knowledge that it had forgotten to impart to me. Before that could happen, the mouth attained a painful stillness, and soon it went out of focus and disappeared. The monster now looked like nothing more than a pale evening shadow.  All that remained, suspended in the air, were its mournful, bloated eyes. That won’t do any good, I thought to it. You can look all you want, but you can’t say a thing. You can’t do a thing. Your existence is over, finished, done. Soon the eyes dissolved into emptiness, and the room filled with the darkness of the night.”