What’s in a Name: The Story of the Monster and a Boy

There once lived a quiet monster in a bustling little village. The village was so little that in fact, that most people who lived there didn’t know they lived in a village. They thought their tiny little corner full of shops and stores made them a town.

There was the tiny food eatery. They sold imported boxes of dry biscuits, stale cakes, and watered-down lukewarm milk. That eatery is the first thing anyone would ever see when they first got off of the bull-drawn carriage. The monster didn’t like the bull-drawn carriages. It read in school that cows emit gas, which, instead of being used for cooking was just, out, lingering, the monster wasn’t a fan of cow gas. The gas made its nose itch.

Once, the monster had the horrible idea of cleaning the little village out. It went to school to study how to make human food. No, the monster didn’t eat, it just wanted to watch hungry little orphans eat. The monster was an orphan itself, at least that’s what it told itself. If it was actually an orphan it would get pity, and free food, and it would meet those wonderful angles called… Peter, File. He hear Mr. File loved monsters.

The monster heard Mr. File lived in a place, not very far from the actual city. It didn’t have much hope though. It heard Mr File had his selection of monsters, and he was more into something called, an Ex- Baxxx.

In summer, rain swept the whole village. Everyone loved it. The village burha loved it because it’d help drown all the poor people. The local bull-keeper loved it because everyone now had to pay for his bulls just to get around. All the humans loved it because they had the ability to fly. But the monster was sad. It knew the rain would prevent it from going to see Mr. File for another year.

This time though, something peculiar happened, something that the Monster didn’t expect to see. A somewhat big and square thing floated out of the swear and hit the monster’s head when it was sleeping at night. The monster was delighted once it opened its eyes, three days later, he had a bad head bump you see. The box lit up, and it knew the box had to have come from Mr. File because it had his signature on it, a half-eaten apple, and a tiny leaf. It rubbed it’s stubby finger’s against the box and uttered the magic words,

“Hey Alexa, are you Siri? And why do I relate so much to a drawing magiced by a Japanese man about a German Monster?”

Part 1 : The Creator

When I first heard the premise of Monster, I thought hell, why hasn’t anybody made this before? They made 1500 versions of the Ramayan and another 10,000 of the Goddamn Kamasutra, but nobody ever though, “Humm… what if I don’t become a total hack and sell the “culture” that I constantly share memes about which I insist are flattering but in reality is weirdly something that I’d go to at 3 am if I didn’t wanna be get flagged for when using my hostel wifi, you know. (Yes, why visit the hub sites, just screenshot your arti… I’m sorry “”””Patriotic Artist’s”””” status updates, fun fact, I apparently am killing God, by refusing to “get over” my asexuality phase, oh yes, I am killing at 33 crores of them) Where was I aah, yes…”

“What if I made something, that speaks to me and potentially someone who is like me, which is not Cntl Ced and Cntl Ved from those ancient books Disney forgot to steal? Hummmmmm…m.m…m.”

I bet the next though that popped into their head was, nah, I’m just gonna come up with Starbucks idea, I mean StartUp. Nyah Nayah, I hate catgirls but please don’t stop buying cat ears from me… Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.

Rant over. I apologize. I am still salty about my freelance days and those hundreds of rupees for the lakhs of words I wrote.

Anyway, turns out the reason most people aren’t Naoki Urasawa is because, it’s really hard to be Naoki Urasawa, and Monster, well…

It’s a long-ass anime.

Part 2: The Creation

Oops Sorry I meant – Part 2: The Creation

You’ve seen monster. That’s just a fact. The story is ancient and we’ve all just seen Monster.

So, instead of telling you the plot again like those hacky internet sites bought by – Oooh Business opportunity morons, let me ask you a, aha, hacky question?

What do you think my question is going to be?

Oooh, I see you pondering, I see ya’ll scoffing too, who do you think you are, the guy that rejected Todd’s Space opera?

But you know, the main point of the anime, is not to, well, you know the question I am probably going to ask, the anime isn’t about that at all.

The anime is a about a monster, a monster who, doesn’t… have a name.

My real question is, who do you think is that Monster?

Part… Something: Oh this… Ya’ll Know David Bowie?

Aaah yes. I am never going to stop taking about that guy.

Yeah, I know I sound like an obsessive idiot.

But I just finished watching a charming actor play one of the most famous obsessive, sane… person on screen, and I gotta say, since my most “smart” and “disciplined” and “serious about their career”, ooooh , ooooh and yeah, “professional” friends dream about worshipping, him, emm… Nah… Nope. I don’t wanna join the Lizard Kingdom that drops “thes” from their names and convince everyone that their skin isn’t real, Spider Kingdom, hands down, from Mars. We got Gaga in our house, and Lorde, do I even need to go on!

Back when everyone was celebrating getting picked up by something probably called fayjus and something that probably has a thousand billboards all across Guwahati with the full form of SAT wrong proudly displayed, I was a Clickfarm farmer. No, not worker, I wish. A farmer. My job was to farm the useless content desperate people in suits and ties in a 100-degree weather in dark rooms are gonna scroll past, or click. And my job was to prey, that people click our junk.

Am I doing something different with this? No. This clearly is junk. But I get to call it the junk it is and nobody’s gonna lecture me about how I went out for momos once in 5+ years while calling himself a “cool guy”. Yeah.

The point is, to feed the hungry hungry clickbait clickers I had to go to a lot of sites, oh interesting question,

Did you know a lot of women’s fashion is inspired by this one man who, I think had the most pet spiders, back in the *gasp* the 70s?

I think their name is David Wynn.

Hey look at that, I found them on Medium, weird they are still active. Don’t tell anybody tho, *whispering* I think they are a *collective gasp* introvert. Yes! They got offended once when their Start-up Guest lecturer called them HER, no I don’t think it had much to do with the wrong definition of introversion and how it may lead people to learn misinformation, through a class that they spent 6 months and paid for in mental health. No, it was a bullshit gender correction SJWness.

Part Something.2 : Okay I lied

Here’s an article I wrote about Mr. Jones when I was too in my feels. Please read it if you like, and if you aren’t Lorde.

That’s Mr. davy Jones who had a lot of names. Sounds kind of familiar?

No?

How about I tell you a story?

Part 3: The Story… Book

There is a charming little episode that features a children’s storybook, and that’s what stuck with me, way after the anime ended.

There’s that story, what’s in a name, and why monsters are…

The monster was hungry and nameless, and umm… please don’t look me up on social media or I might look like that monster. I wanna be everyone, I wanna try everything, and my biggest flaw is that I… don’t… Have a name.

I write for Medium as David Wynn. My LinkedIn profile (currently has me naming myself DieAnne, Wynn obviously. Umm… yeah, I hope Natalie never finds this. God, I am getting my fangirling on, at 24, how wonderful.

Part 4: ShankarDev isn’t an Author, Apparently

For my high school passing essay, I wrote about ShankarDev. In MIL they always had us writing at least one essay, and it was mostly about stuff like,

A person you admire

Bihu

Your Favourite Author

A person you admire

Your Favourite Poet

A PERSON YOU ADMIRE

during my year we got, can you guess which one? Oh yes, correct answer, it’s YOUR favorite AUTHOR.

So, how this used to work back in the day was, you just write about the person you remember the most about. I’ve been studying about Sri Sri (is somebody gonna cancel me because didn’t add the Sri Sri before, oh well, there’s nothing I can do now, huh, go ahead, please comment how rude you think I am) ShankarDev. You know, he swam the Brahmaputra when he was 2, his pupil once kept reciting his name after being beheaded (weird how we don’t bring up that pupil more huh), he was SUPER close with his main pupil MadhavDev who broke off his own engagement… JUST to study… Under him, he wrote like a chill verse, without using any vowels so yeah, we had some lyrical miracle genius too.

So yeah, I made the very logical decision to write about ShankarDev as my favorite author. I started by quoting the vowel-less piece of magic he blew his teacher’s mind with, I went on to compare myself to him saying, yes, if I was a teacher, I would love it if… nay, I will make it my mission to politely insist that all my students devote their lives to me, I spit fire and ink, with my words, and my pen, seriously, it was a pretty leaky pen, and I had a nice little finishing touch about how if I could go back in time, I would go, collect the chopped off head as memorabilia and bring it back here… for research.

Yeah. That was back in 2014. I didn’t own a cellphone. My main inspiration for future technological advancement was a charming show called ‘Nagin’ and I believe that was the year we started hearing rumbles about some “aache din” or something. My point is my essay was totally original and it had all the necessary components: direct quotes, Narcissism, and most importantly, time travel. I left the exam hall happy planning my next move, how to steal em snake eggs without getting yellow paint effect sprayed over me by that lady in a badly made little mermaid costume. I was at least bound to get 8/10, which is one mark more than any teacher provides for an essay. I was about to create history.

1/10.

ShankarDev in not an author.

Part 5: I Like It, I’m 25

If you asked me today, who my favorite author was, here:

Aha, no. Her name literally means author, and you don’t rate my paper anymore Assamese exam paper… checker, yes that’s the right term I believe.

My, *laugh* MLBB handle is Jee Eun Lee in Korean, I mean it used to be, didn’t you hear, it’s kind of banned now I believe. My point is, I’ve been stealing names for a long time.

ShankarDev wasn’t the only person I remembered the most about. We’ve been reading about LakshmiNath Bezbaruah since I can remember, I read Xofura every month ever since I could read and I did watch Hanto Histo Hasta Pusta Mahadusto so I was a bit of a fan of Bhabendra Nath Saikia, my mom read Miri Jiyori and that’s the only novel I heard her talking about so I did read about Rajanikanto Bordoloi too, the point is I had options.

The reason I wrote about ShankarDev was that vowel-less poem. I wanted my essay’s name to be ShankarDev, my favorite author, and I thought it’d look really nice and clickable if I could align my handwriting to the middle of the page for the poem and switch to full width for the main essay. I wanted whoever graded my paper to have a nice user experience. (and, I wanted to talk about time travel)

Turns out it didn’t matter. The teacher saw the name I picked and…

Part 6: What’s in a Name: A Tragedy

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet and which is one of the most famous tales of love, and family rivalry, and I’d say it’s a better Comedy than The Comedy of Errors, no I haven’t read either and I don’t intend to. Juliet utters the quote to Romeo according to Google’s snippet result and I didn’t bother to check where they sourced it from.

I’d like to disagree with Juliet. She, I think was 13, and she stabbed herself so I don’t know how seriously I’ll take her opinion on names. Turns out, a name is worth a lot.

Elric Bachman found out that very fact the wrong way in the show Silicon Valley.

And the monster, well…

The castle sounds nice. And I think the monster did a really good thing by making the boy healthy. But the hunger.

Part 7: How To Steal and Name in Just 10 Easy Steps

What the monster did, is not an uncommon phenomenon. I remember when I was young I read about this lady who really liked the name Potter and thought about stealing the name for herself. She is a gazillionaire now, and some other stuff but we, don’t (want to) talk about that, no, no.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but, I have kind of been trying to base my whole persona around a man, a starman if you may, who went by many names.

There’s the Catgirl, I think her name’s Tabby, she changes her name all the time and I can’t help myself from keep stealing them, I don’t know what to tell you.

Johan is a really lovely name, and I think I’d want to steal it too.

The difference is, what you do with the name once you’ve stolen it. Are you gonna be hungry and eat your king, or are you gonna pick up your cat ears, and auction them off on eBay?

Epilogue

“The common link I see between all these characters is they all hate their birth name. They also seemed to have a rebellious spirit and often got misunderstood as a result. They also seemed incredibly gifted. Their gift seemed to be honed by their life experience and struggle. Ziggy Stardust, Tabby the anarchist cat, and the monster that made people stronger, all of them inspired others while having a somewhat tragic persona. You as a local village monster get inspired by them because they feel like they are one of your kind, modeling your life based on them makes you feel bigger than what you are while also being true to yourself. I think that’s why you relate so much to a drawing magiced by a Japanese man about a German Monster, even though you know you… will never be anything that’ll ever resemble anything that they were and stood for.

Would you like me to renew your Netflix Subscription?”

The monster uttered something incomprehensible through its deformed mouth. It put the box down. It was dawn, and the monster knew what it had to do. The flood days were almost over.

....
Dr. Andrews
Will build a creature

See Androids fighting
Brad and Jennet

.
.
.
Forbidden planet.
Wo-o-o-o-o-o-oh
.
.
At the late night.
Double feature
Monster show.

- Science fiction Double Feature Picture show from Rocky Horror Picture Show

Credits and Sources

Writing and Design: David Wynn (Trishna)

Inspiration

1. ‘Monster’ by Naoki Urasawa
2. ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spider from Mars’ by David Bowie
3. ‘The Left | Contrapoints’ by Natalie Wynn

Sources

1. Naoki Urasawa’s Monster Wiki – Link

Image Sources

1. Naoki Urasawa’s Monster Wiki – Link
2. Naoki Urasawa- Wikipedia
3. Yahoo Search
4. Spongebob Time Card – Youtube
5. Palette, IU – Youtube

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