Create a Monster

This writing prompt came the Poets & Writers website. It has never been posted online. Because it was never intended to be posted on a writing website, it is shorter.

From Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus to Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, there is a long tradition of fiction about monsters. Write a story of your own in which a monster is the main character. The monster could be based on another monster from literature or popular culture or it could be one from your imagination.

The shadows were growing long. The creature could not sit or squat. His entire form just seemed to hunker down. Knuckles resting on the ground with elbows barely bent. Knees flexed only the slightest. The spherical head was set between raised shoulders. From a distance, the creature would be difficult to distinguished from nearby rock formations. It was the same dun color as the sandy dirt it stood upon. Its skin showed the cracks of a sun baked stream bed that had not seen rain in months. Its whole shaped was some barely began mother goddess sculpture. Even approaching the creature a person would have to look hard and close to make out the rough hewed human form.

As the sun began to descend below the horizon and the sky turned from azure to indigo, the creature began to stir. At first the movement was as subtle as a pebble falling down a cliffside. As the night became more firmly entrenched, the creature’s motion progressed to a landslide of grinding boulders. When the moon pierced the night, the creature stood erect in a sudden move that caused the dirt blown onto it shake loose. Then with slow deliberate steps, the creature began moving toward the rising moon.

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