(These were actually modified homework assignments that I’m posting here, as they are pieces of fiction related to the Gothic and the supernatural. I’m going to title these “The Others.” These will be written from the perspective of agents who could be considered the unsung heroes of the secret societies. The everyday workers who work as hard as our protagonist and favorite characters but never get the recognition they deserve.)
When I stepped into the air-conditioned general store, I was greeted by the scent of pine wood and the vision of several trinkets and small objects being sold by the man behind the counter. There was a lot of memorabilia of the creature known as “Sasquatch” being sold on items such as key-chains. In areas of the United States where there is a lot of wilderness and shrubbery, one is bound to hear stories of the mystical Bigfoot. This creature is supposedly a hominid creature that branched off from Homosapiens during the time of humans coming into being by way of natural selection. This theory goes that something must have gone awry within the genetics of the mammal from the first aeon in which man’s common ancestor crawling out of the sea would eventually begin to morph upright and climb into the trees. Making way for the world’s cruelest animal.
This reminded me of a book I had read on the way up here, that was provided by the mysterious benefactor. According to W Scott Poole author of Monsters in America,
“Contrary evidence however, suggests that such an ambivalent view of the natives had very little traction among the most early modern Europeans. The conquerors of the New World saw,not simply savage versions of humanity, but the monstrous races of their mythology.even significant enlightenment thinkers such as the French naturalist Buffon in his Natural History connected the creation of monstrosities with the etiology of the “darker races.” Monsters represented the progeny of these supposedly savage peoples, a concept that reappeared again and again throughout American history, with a lineage that stretches from Puritan minister Cotton Mather to the 20th century horror maestro HP Lovecraft.” (Poole, 2011.)
I thought about the passage as I purchased a key chain. As the cashier was ringing me up I looked down to the sign hanging on the front of the counter which read, “T.E.A. Taxed Enough Already. No Socialist Welfare Queens Wanted.”
I did, however, take the time to ask about the recent sighting of the creature in the local woods. A hunter had seen what he had thought to be a mammalian bipedal creature stomping about in the woods. He said the creature looked extremely strong and had extremely loud footsteps. He hastily ran away.
Data:
Poole, W. S. (2011). Monsters in America: our historical obsession with the hideous and the haunting. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press.
Posted Jan 26, 14 · OP · Last edited Jan 26, 14
As I entered the Alabama woods, I had brought along several pieces of recording equipment including a parabolic dish, this item is used for catching noises of creatures that are running rather fast. From the report I had read though this hominid creature likes to stomp around. crushing several leaves underfoot. I thought back several millennia ago, knowing something must’ve happened to our fragile evolutionary strains. How lucky we are. Perhaps it is how unlucky we are?
This creature was known to be covered from hair from head to toe. Oddly enough in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, we are introduced to a monstrosity of the same type known as Caliban. This creature is brutal to its surroundings tearing any civilized man apart from limb to limb. I thought of this as I sat in my camp listening for any sounds.
Supposedly the creature would be banging sticks against trees for some reason.
This is possibly be due to the fact that it wanted to cause several smaller creatures to leave the relative safety of the trees. I continued walking around the wood using my infrared for some sort of support visually. I decided not to be armed, as I doubted I would find anything of any value. I continually walked through the woods listening to the sound of crunching leaves and hooting owls. I eventually found my way to a stream that was glistening in the silvery moonlight of the full moon. I spotted what looked large footprints made by a mammalian primate. this however was the only piece of evidence I could gather. I was able to snap a digital photograph of the tracks before leaving the woods. If there were any traces of our evolutionary past to be found in these woods, they were not making themselves manifest on this night.
Data reference : Introduction to Shakespeare’s Caliban from The Tempest. (n.d.).Introduction to Shakespeare’s Caliban from The Tempest. Retrieved January 31, 2014, from Introduction to Shakespeare's Caliban from The Tempest
Looking back at this investigation we can see that through using a myriad of sources we can see by looking at certain incredulous esoteric sources like Blavatsky the myths of these hominid creatures arose out of superstitions about master races and of early America’s racial tensions with slavery. That was only somewhat solved by all of the death in the Civil War. We can see that these theories are still in conservative circles today. Perhaps one might want to look up the subtext of the works written by Howard Phillips Lovecraft in the early 1920s and 30s. This shows us that the horrors of racism still haunt America. White neighborhoods still fear their gene pool being contaminated by an unknown substance. Thus beginning to ruin their so called perfect suburban American dream.
Posted Jan 31, 14 · OP · Last edited Jan 31, 14