Backwriting Frankenstein

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I felt my eyelids flickering.

First there was this explosion of light; behind my eyes and in my brain and then… I dawned upon me. Thoughts and images fluttered through my brain. Who was I? What was I?

I didn’t know anything from before that explosion but in the seconds, minutes after it, impressions came to me and before long it was all galvanised in my conscience. I was. I was thinking, thus I was.

The next phase was beginning to live in my bodily form. I moved a finger, then another. I wriggled my toes. Through a series of tiny movements, I ascertained that all my body parts were working. There were no pain sensations, only the odd tingling of my extremities. I felt I was strapped to a bed, with stiff, leather straps.

I explored my senses. I could hear birds twittering. It was an extraordinary sensation. I sensed someone was with me, breathing heavily. After a flutter of my eyelids I noticed my eyesight was working too.

I moved my head sideways and opened my eyes.  A portly young man in a white coat was sitting beside me on a chair. He sat as if frozen to his seat, eyes wide open and a stunned expression on his face.

‘It is real’, he said. ‘I created life. I tried to find the best brain I could for you. How is it working?’

‘Who am I?’ My voice croaked, as if I had not been speaking for a long time.

‘In fact, I tried to find the best body parts for your whole body. But seeing you like this I wonder whether I did the right thing.’

He started to undo the straps and helped me to a sitting position. My torso felt heavy. I stretched my arms and flexed my hands to help the circulation.

‘Who am I?’ I asked again.

The man fetched a mirror.

‘Look at yourself!’

I looked and saw a wretched creature. A mismatched jumble of body parts. Nothing fitted, blended or felt like it belonged to me. My face was distorted, with scars where I had been sown together. No-one would look upon such a face and feel joy, or love, or even pity.

I cried out.

‘Why?’

‘Because I wanted to see if I could,’ he said. ‘Give life to a creature. And I did. I created men!’

‘And pray, what are you going to do with me? You gave me life and inner life – just to see whether you could? Oh, the cruelty of it all. If life is the most desired thing on Earth can you now extinguish mine, please? I don’t want it. I ought to be thy Adam, but I don’t find myself in the Garden of Eden.’


Rewriting exercise: Frankenstein's creation wakes up.

 


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Thank you! Be your nose a pointer for your brain! (OED)

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