The Beast Comes For Us
Victor usually wrote personal stories from his own life about what was important to him but, these days, he felt an obligation to write political satire—the anger demanded it. Hatred was everywhere, promoted by the nation’s leaders. The Beast appeared and slouched over the land, at first hesitant, increasingly relentless, lumbering towards where Victor lived, the land slowly ruled by the Beast.
Citizens stood by. The Beast was huge, impossible to stop, growing larger and more ominous every day. It left scars in the ground from its claws. Its growls rumbled inside the citizens’ bones. As it grew closer, citizens offered sacrifices—TVs, cell phones, dishwashers. It ate the appliances, then those offering the sacrifices.
Most disturbing was that the citizens themselves had created the Beast. It formed from their dreams and needs but especially their anger. They could not fight themselves. There was much discussion but no solutions. All they could do was watch as the Beast lumbered into their city and began to destroy. Its claws tore apart schools, research labs, information centres, churches. Only rubble and scattered remains were left to remind the citizens of what they had built.
Victor fled, hoping for a world where people understood their anger.