The Great Beyond Prologue

New Years Eve 2028: Penthouse Apartment near Downtown Winnipeg

I lived through a nightmare in a parallel life… Rather I survived death yet again… This time I had to fight for things that most humans take for granted. Things we are born with and most, the lucky ones at least, get to keep for life. Things most of us take for granted. Things we rely on for everyday functionality. Some say I lost more then was apparent that night… More then was obvious and I turned… Turned into something that shouldn’t exist. I turned into a vengeful monster out of folklore. Not a vampire, or a troll, or a werewolf… No.. Nothing that common… Some tried to describe me as the creature from Frankenstein…But I was more devious… More deceitful.

The monster from Frankenstein had tried to understand humanity. He looked through the cracks in a house from the attached woodshed and tried to understand what made a family a family. He wanted to blend in despite his differences. He wanted nothing more then to be thought of as normal… To partake in family. He wanted to belong and had never know what that was like. He had been created from body parts scavenged from graveyards… Bits taken from different people… Put together piecemeal. If anything I was a reverse Frankenstein’s monster. I had been taken apart.

I lost my sight. I lost my taste and my voice. I lost my power to reason. I lost my breath. I lost love. I lost the power to reproduce. I lost it all. All those basic things humans are born with due to jealousy and madness in a power struggle for dominance…. Control… Control of my talents. I was an accomplished novelist, poet, photographer, a seasoned cook, a great orator, a great thinker, and very athletic to boot but all due to a couple hundred dollars of Chinese food and some free drinks I lost it all. My organs had been harvested: my eyes, my tongue, my heart, my brain, my lungs, and my testicles had been taken. I of course lived through it and lived to regret being immortal as not even having been butchered could keep me dead. I breathed without lungs, I had a pulse without a heart, I could see without eyes and learned to talk without a tongue. I missed my testicles the most… I was a great father and had many children… Besides the testosterone kept me jacked and helped to make me competitive. Without these things I was not whole. I was only part of what I had formerly been… Maybe not even human anymore. Hence the reverse Frankenstein’s monster.

It was no doctor that cut me up. He was no brain surgeon… No heart surgeon… No lung surgeon… Not a surgeon at all… He was a madman. He created the next monster to stalk humanity… Me and what I became. I lived through the abuse only to swear revenge. Parallel with the classic Frankenstein I swore to get even with the butcher that created me… To kill him. Revenge was my motive, but I killed many more then my nephew. It tore my family apart even though I only killed two of my direct family members.

My nephew and my brother were the two who set it all up. They wanted my talents… To be like me… To do what I did. Like natives of old I think they thought they could take my physical body parts as trophies and gain my strengths. If I was a brave warrior my heart would have been eaten. Had I been strong and could throw a spear farther then most, my biceps would have been eaten. Had I fathered many great children… Well, you get it. But they did not consume my flesh, they implanted it. They used me like an organ donor and replaced their body parts with mine. Each of the pieces I now lacked had been transplanted to my brother, my nephew, or one of his friends and I wanted them back desperately.

I wanted to be whole again… Human in every way that I once had been. I wanted my voice to sing and recite poetry. I wanted my tongue to taste the next creation out of my kitchen. I wanted my eyes to frame imaginary thirds so I could share the natural beauty of another nature photo. I wanted yet again to look upon the face of a woman and see her raw beauty, her magnificence, her essential being. I wanted to see my family naturally not through a cloudy second sight that distorts reality into blurred shapes and blended colors, mostly black and white. I wanted to see words again, syllable by syllable, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, novel by novel. How could I write without seeing? I lived to craft essays, novels, poems, short stories, even journal entries like this one. I supposed I could use a braille typewriter, but how do I think without a brain? Without the brain I could do none of the above… Nothing! I snapped… I wanted them dead. I bet with a brain I could have reasoned, could have come up with a better way to get my organs back, but I think that’s why I turned the most… I could no longer think.

I only thought of hatred and ways to hurt humans.. Those humans… The ones that got in the way… The ones that protected them… The ones that tried to stop me… The ones that had hurt me. Rage filled what passed as thought. I admit I was lucid… I could still reason… I must be lucid… I planned… Planed revenge. Still with a brain I could have done better… Stayed calmer… Reasoned… Thought it out. With eyes I could have seen a solution… With a heart I could have felt remorse… With lungs I could have breathed life… With testicles I could have manned up and found a better way. Instead I tasted victory without a tongue… I tasted blood… Their blood. If they had asked I would have taught them… Made them my equals… Peer to peer they may have even surpassed me… Become greater then the teacher. They hadn’t stopped to think or they knew it would torture me… Yeah… I think that was it… They wanted to torture me.

Organs of mine were harvested on this very night… In this very place… My own home. I lost my life even though I am immortal and cannot die. I still live through the experience in my dreams… My nephew haunts me… Chills me to the bone… Like he’s still here to remind me that he’s in charge. My name is Robert Johnston and I’m a author… I live again to tell you this tale.. The story of my own death and my own resurrection to a parallel life. I’d better get back to the party before I’m noticed as missing. I couldn’t help but get away to jot down a few feelings about what had happened, even though it’s like it never happened at all. Yes, I’ll return to my friends and the buffet of home cooked food. There had been hors d’oeuvres like cheese and crackers, shrimp puffs, mini egg rolls, mini spring rolls, and shrimp cocktails done up six to a glass filled with cocktail sauce. I especially liked the Breton crackers done up as pizza with different toppings like pepperoni and cheese, salami and cheese, diced stoplight peppers and cheese, and one they dubbed taco with seasoned beef, tomato, lettuce, and sour cream instead of pizza sauce. When it came time for the meal they had prepared Chinese Food with dishes like Lemon Chicken, Chicken Balls, Garlic Riblets, Beef and Black-eyed Bean Sauce, Ginger Beef, Breaded Veal pieces, Kung Pao Chicken, Garlic Shrimp, Breaded Shrimp, Cantonese Foo Yong, Beef Fried Rice, Chicken Fried Rice, Mixed Steamed Vegetables, Cantonese Noodles, Steamed White Rice, and Egg Rolls. There were a few different sauces available like Sweet and Sour, Honey Garlic, Thai Sweet Chili Sauce, Lemon Sauce, Sriracha Sauce, and Teriyaki Sauce to top your plate and add flavour to the dishes. Well to hold back no more here’s the story as it happened. The beginning, the middle, and the end just the way it happened… Like it was meant to be.