The Queen and The Tide

How do you destroy a monster without becoming one?

The question is paved into sand, permanent enough to ask, but easily erased by the shore. I am so inherently good. Well, I am not. But I was certainly taught. My mother is inherently good. She has been since the moment we met, and I have burned it in my skin to be like her ever since.

I walked along the line of sand lightly touched by the waves. The sand was cool and unstable as it shifted beneath me, fighting the war waged by water. Water didn’t see it as war, but of course she didn’t. She wasn’t the one whose integrity was being pulled out from under her.

I often used the sand as my journal. The deepest parts of my mind are etched and erased by the shoreline so they might exist fully in the water, where no one can find them. But they exist just the same.

“How,” I started to write, “do you destroy a monster without becoming one?”

The waves pulled themselves forward to erase the words, and just as soon as the thought was transferred to the ground, there it went, into the sea. I was not satisfied, as I had been so many times before.

I knew the monster I was speaking of was not born from evil. In fact, I believe she is inherently good. Or was. Maybe her mother was good too. Or maybe her mother was evil. Maybe she spoke to her with sharp teeth and told her she was hollow. Maybe she believed it. Maybe the first thing she ever loved never loved her back. Or worse, maybe it couldn’t love her back. Maybe someone told her never to cry, so maybe she never did.

It can’t be that she is inherently evil. She would not look at me the way she does when the knife is twisted. She would not avert her eyes when finalizing her blows. She would not control her smile when her enemies fell to their knees.

I have seen a world where mirrors reflect a pain I could not imagine. But that world cannot exist in this one. Not anymore.

The water became angry in a way I had not seen, as if she were, for the first time, asking for my entry to be revoked, perhaps so she would not be held liable for the answer I created for myself. The sand was similarly irritated. It grew cold and sharp under my feet. Their fear of my answer solidified it for me. They knew, as I did.

But I was so inherently good. Then again, so was she.

I sketched the words into the sand, and the sand agreed. And so did the sea. And so did the history that created me.

And the monster was finally set free.

And I will now look away when I twist the knife until the next inherently good sacrifice comes to save me.