The Beast

It’s nighttime again, and my soul is wearily drawn to wake up in a new dream Hell, where I haven’t checked in with my Correctional Officers in a while. A whirlwind sucks me in, but this time it feels less forceful. I feel a need and a duty to go there like I have to see an old friend of mine that I haven’t checked on in a while.

I find myself in the same place I did twice before but on a different level. It no longer looks like a cell for one, it’s a private cinema, of the kinds you would only get to see in custom-built mansions of the rich and famous. It sports a large flamboyant designer couch as a centerpiece. There are open cigarettes and liquor as if the room’s previous occupant has just left it not long ago.

I get an instant sense that they’ve left the room for me to use, and that there is something in there for me.

I get a sense this room belongs to somebody related to me, who feels no need for austerity when it comes to indulgence. There are probably drugs, every kind of drug stashed in the adjacent liquor cabinet built into the seating, but I am more interested in finding out what is on screen.

Oh, it’s a movie premiere.

There I spot a formal invitation on the armrest, an RSVP printed in black and gold letters:

The Beast

Executive Producer

Nora Michalska

It’s weird because there is no cast of actors, screenwriters, make-up artists, or costume designers. It’s just me as the picture’s Executive Producer. I am responsible for everything in the story. A feeling of uneasy excitement washes over me. After the opening credits that flash at me, accusatory, too long in black and white, the story starts unfolding —

This is a story of a man with a violent past. Flashing images of drugs, ligatures, cartel violence, bags dropped in a wasteland. Long shot of a man standing next to a car alone, washing off red brick dust from his hands with a bottle of water like it’s the color of his sin that he needs to wash away. The scenery moves away from those images after that, showing a greener landscape. It is implied he got out of it, and he’s embraced some new business with a sense of urgency like his redemption lies in sticking with it.

Images of dissatisfaction. Leather boots kicking against a rock in a rocking motion. Waiting, waiting on something, someone, to come, for something to happen. But nothing does and it leads to anguish. He tries to go back to something, tries to start something new, but he can’t. He’s weighed down by this burden. Images of red and brown sand, it’s not dust anymore. It’s heavier, reminiscent of the motion of a sand clock. He dons a white shirt and takes to drinking. A woman in a white dress joins him in the landscape. He clutches her hand in the car like it’s the preferred choice to the bottle – or maybe the bottle alone does not suffice anymore. A road trip leads them back into his past, without seeking to do so, without ever intending to go back there, there he is, older, somewhere near the same place where he washed his hands in the first scene.

We see a campfire at night. Two sweethearts in a state of blissfully intoxicated, they make an oath of love and loyalty to each other. She proposes they should bind themselves by sharing a secret that nobody else knows about him. He confides in her about this monster that lives inside him, that he calls ‘It’, or ‘the Beast’. He implies that the ‘It’ has taken lives, and still wants to, and the reason he cannot leave his business is because he is afraid that It will come back and take over him. He is desperate. She listens intently without judgment, and draws the conversation back to romance, she assures him that she loves him so much that she can make sure he will never again be the Beast and that she will support his business career. He drives her to a spot where it all went down, and gives her a Ring of Promise. He stands alone against the sun, blinded by the light.

Only gentle distant whirlwinds of a white sandstorm are seen in the background.

A few years go by.

We see his old shirts folded and tucked underneath the bed in vacuum storage. He won’t need them anymore. The bottle is replaced now by something he’s injecting. It’s a false victory, a side move, but he doesn’t want to see that. Leather boots kicked against the rock sand, trying to create a rhythm. He wants to master this thing. Just get a grip on it! He can do this. The woman’s hand with the ring is shown laid over his clenched fists. The image blurs into strains of sand, raining down, all different colors, and for the first time, we can also hear them. The pouring sound. Now they too, have a rhythm. The business starts struggling and failing, because of a press scandal containing an old murder that he has nothing to do with, he is innocent this time, but the strains of sand are working. The more he speaks, the less the public believes him. His old guilt implicates him. The white shirt becomes soiled from constant sweating. The woman becomes aggravated. They argue. Despair. Blame each other. Hopes, then making up. In one image, her ring suddenly disappears from her hand. Somebody doesn’t feel bound by their promise anymore. He grabs her hand violently. She makes a counter motion, sly, pointing her hand to the place where she got the ring. He realizes he is being blackmailed. Now everything is ruined, and there is nothing he can do about it about it. His face becomes gray. He steps into the background. She appears in the forefront, white, as if saying the only way out is death now.

He attempts to kill himself.

In a near-death coma, he perceives everything around him. He perceives himself in a cage made out of false white light.

He looks at his arms, and they are bound with shackles. Those shackles go back somewhere, far. He cannot see where. There is no point in time where everything went wrong. One chain link is tightly interlocked with another, and the next one follows from there.

He is close to dying, but there is something that catches his attention. Observing this cage makes him think of something he has pushed from his mind.

The Beast. The Monster.

His face trembles with denial. Then, anger. Then, RAGE. He realizes the Beast has never gone anywhere, it’s been him all along, and this is why he is caged, bound like an animal, he feels no freedom.

He snaps out of the coma and screams with rage. Now he doesn’t want to die, and he feels joy, it’s a Dark Joy. The picture starts turning green, representing all the business, money, a lush landscape, he turned away from crime, no, it’s another green completely, it’s poison and it’s flooding him now, drowning out the white light, he succumbs to it.

He is back where he started.

The story ends with visuals of him gathering stuff ready to take care of business, loading his 9mm gun, moving musically like it’s a good thing. Like it’s the right thing to do. He will save himself from blackmail, but what he is actually ending, is the lie. He understands now that the promise that another’s love can make the Beast go away was a lie all along, a sinister lie sold to him for a purpose.

Nobody can save him from the Beast. It is who he is, and only in accepting it, he finds redemption.

We hear the sounds of the last things packed up, as he throws on a jacket, throws car keys, and then a loud, violent door slam that resembles a gunshot. The door he enters looks green and gets flooded with light like just entered a primal jungle. As he disappears in the green doors he appears less than human, more of a supernatural force, just a silhouette, something impersonal. Justice. It is implied the woman deserves to die for lying; she was not accepting the Beast in loving understanding, she saw its power and was seeking to use it. Now that he acts by his true nature there is no more anguish, no more dissatisfaction, or even doubt. Everything becomes clear. Where once he believed that renouncing the Beast was the only way to move forward in life, he knows now that the Beast is the only one that has a future, however grim that future might be.

You are who you are, Louis. You are a vampire.

Interview with a Vampire

He who controls the story, rules the masses.

Chinese Proverb

Two quotes flash on the black screen and the movie is over.

To my left, I feel a dark presence.

Lucifer himself is here.

I know he is about to say something, make a point, but he doesn’t need to. I sense instinctively what he is trying to communicate to me, that this is a pivotal name.

I have become the creator of the story that I am watching.

The Duke of Hell speaks to my mind, directly.

There is only one story that really matters to me. Focus on it.

He is serious with words, and sparse.

There is only one lead character and one support character of importance. You know this already. I am not telling you anything new.

Then the dark presence disappears with what feels like a nudge and a wink, and I am looking at the RSVP card in my right hand. I realize it looks identical to the invitation to a show I have seen twice in Las Vegas, which was supposed to be followed by a lavish dinner that however never occurred.

I flip the RSVP. Something was added to its other side in cursive handwriting —

“Perhaps we will talk about the conditions of your release soon. Signed, Baron”

One hand on the trigger, the other hand in mine
Because now Cupid carries a gun
Pound me the witch drums, witch drums
Pound me the witch drums
Better pray for hell, not hallelujah

— Marylin Manson