The Story of the Dangerous Monster

A chilling cautionary tale.

Once upon a time in a specific region of the Earth, there lived a monster. The people who lived close to the edges of the monsters territory, by and large assumed it to be potentially dangerous and thus avoided entering its habitat where possible. One group of scientists however were skeptical this assumption, reasoning that the monster posed no demonstrable threat to humans. They decided to mount an expedition to study the monsters life-cycle and behaviour, taking what seemed to be reasonable safety precautions which in retrospect were wholly inadequate. It soon became apparent that they had underestimated the aggressive nature of the monster. Two of the eight person team were injured, one of them seriously, and the study had to be cut short. Later the scientists expressed regret at their failure to ensure the safety of their team. They pointed out however that they had ultimately demonstrated empirically that the monster was indeed dangerous, at least under certain circumstances and that this in itself was useful information. In an unrelated incident, several years later, heavy rainfall contributed to a catastrophic landslide which killed everyone in the region as well as the monster. This is no doubt the reason you were unaware of these events until now. As to how I came by this information, I confess, to my knowledge the events described above did not happen. This account is entirely fictional. It is intended to delight, thrill and terrify its readers and should not be interpreted as a reliable factual report. Additionally, there is a moral which is that it is sensible to exercise caution in hazardous circumstances and to take reasonable steps to mitigate risks where possible. I have now said all I intend to on the topic. Please return to what ever you were doing before you began reading or, if you prefer, do something different, or nothing at all. Thank you for your attention.

Reviews

[Julio]

A towering masterpiece. Ambitious, challenging, stunningly original and unflinchingly honest. So vivid is Julio's writing, that by the end you'll feel you've visited the places he describes and that his characters are old friends.