More than 40 micro-stories have joined this week the literary contest organized by Radio Lanzarote Onda Cero, which in its eighth edition pays tribute to the bicentennial of the novel 'Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus' by British writer Mary Shelley. It should be remembered that the deadline to participate in the contest will end on August 31st, so the contest is already entering its final stretch.
The proposal on this occasion is to imagine the continuation of the story, following the text from the moment in which Dr. Frankenstein "jumped through the cabin window to the raft that was floating next to the ship. Soon the waves carried him away, and he was lost in the distance and in the darkness".
As in previous editions, the maximum length of the stories will have to be 100 words, including the title if it has one, and the radio must be part of the story. Each author can submit a maximum of five stories, which can be signed with a pseudonym, although they must always indicate a name and a contact telephone number. All those who wish to participate can send their stories to the email concursorelatos@lanzarotemedia.net.
The stories will be published in order of receipt in La Voz de Lanzarote and will be read in the 'Reading on the Radio' section of Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero. The verdict of the contest, which will be made public in the second half of September, will be the responsibility of a jury made up of journalists from Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero and La Voz de Lanzarote, who will choose three winning stories and seven finalists.
The winner of the first prize will receive a two-night stay for two people in half board at the Vik San Antonio hotel, while the story that wins the second prize will receive a Billow tablet from Tiendas AHL Informática, with a 10.1" screen, 64 b, 1GBDD3, 16 GB of memory, Android 7.0 and dual wifi 2.40. The third prize will be a family pass (up to four people) with lunch included to Rancho Texas Lanzarote Park.
Eureka (Nunavut), 1948
Like a frozen gargoyle, he floated through unknown seas for years of glacial peace until he awoke in a white room. His rage knew no bounds when he realized that those men who looked at him with horror had made him be born again.
Stepping over shattered corpses, he walked to a large machine full of strange buttons. He examined it until his keen intellect revealed its purpose and he smiled. Now, the whole world would know his tragedy.
Leaning over the radio console, the monster began to recite:
"I remember with great difficulty the first period of my existence"
Untitled
The creature surrendered to the sea, plunging into the depths. He waited impatiently for the cessation of his immortal life, crushed by the weight of the ocean and that of his remorse. A radio operator of a German submarine captured his anomalous presence on sonar with the passing of centuries, the animals of the abyssal depths shunned him. There was not even the dust of Victor Frankenstein's bones left when the seas dried up with the passage of eons and the creature saw the merciless sky again, unable to escape the curse of existing.
Untitled
The creature arrived ashore after weeks of wandering the ocean. He was hidden in the reverses and folds of humanity for centuries. Until in his erratic path he found the ingenuity of the radio, with its voices populating the silence. That kind of magical device was not afraid of his presence, his horrible appearance or the gravity of his sins, it always had words for that poor creature who only wanted to occupy a space in someone's attention. Since then he lies rooted somewhere distant, next to a transistor radiating him comfort.
Frequency Modulated
Not even at that moment could their realities be separated. Neither death nor life were exclusive anymore. Somehow, both Victor Frankenstein and the beast he created plunged into darkness, adrift. Both were at the mercy of darkness: one lying on the waves of eternity, the other on a raft on the waves of a raging ocean. Although their souls had been distanced, there was a bond that would unite them eternally, as if it were a modulated frequency that could only be tuned by two unique radios.
Legacy of obsession
Robert Walton leaned over the railing, trying to discern the course pursued by the creature. His clenched fists and tense face only evidenced his anger. He had barely met Victor Frankenstein, but his moving story had managed to engage him. He convinced the crew that they were returning to their homes, then went to the bridge, took the helm firmly and steered the ship after the raft, determined to fulfill the scientist's last wish. He didn't realize it, but he was humming a tune that years later would be played on the radios.
Return
And so he remained, adrift, for many days. In the end, the raft disintegrated under his feet, although, fortunately for him, when this happened the seawater barely reached his waist. He had reached a beach and, in the distance, he could make out the yellowish lights that indicated the existence of a house. He walked towards it with faltering steps.
When he was near, he stopped: from inside the house came a wonderful melody, which came from a radio, and he was captivated by the sound. After hesitating for a few moments, he advanced towards the house.
One last howl
The creature was alone, adrift in a vast, icy sea, with the burden of the crimes he had committed behind him. Suddenly, the small radio on the boat crackled: 'Storm warning in the northern region'. It was as if a revelation had struck his limited mind. Determined, he headed to where the sky was illuminated by lightning. He stood up and, holding the small anchor over his head, let out one last howl before being struck down by lightning. Thus, almost as it began, this story ended.
Adrift
The creature floated adrift, for he did not know how to steer the boat, although if he had, he probably would have ignored where to go. He simply wanted to get away. Most likely, they had already given his position from the ship via radio, and there were already people eager to hunt him down, to eliminate that demonic being, that aberration, from the face of the earth. As they had tried to do before. Always persecuted, always hated. And so, he could do nothing but curl up, huddled in that raft, and wait for what fortune would bring him. Always adrift.
Missing
The monster had escaped. And on the ship, the crew debated what to do with the body of the deceased doctor. Finally, they decided to bury him in the cold waters of the Arctic, which had been his home in recent years.
Days later, the radio transmitted a message: 'Planks found adrift'. Identification revealed that it was the raft in which the creature had escaped. However, nothing was known of that being. Some say he died, others that he was not human enough to die. In any case, he was never heard from again.
Feelings
People had always rejected him for being different, for not being human enough. But at that moment, on that raft rocked by the waves of the ocean, the only thing the creature could feel was fear, anguish, terror at what was to come. The radio would have already broadcast his situation. Everyone would know by now that his creator, his father, was dead. And everyone would blame him. Of course, other deaths weighed on his conscience. And remembering all those whose lives he had taken, that being wept. For the first time. As if he were human.
Loneliness
There, alone in that vast ocean, immersed in the blackness of night, the creature once again felt the loneliness that had haunted him since his creator brought him into the world. And when the lights of the coast became visible, when he could see the beach, and hear the murmur of laughter mixed with melodies coming from some radio, he also saw the bonfires around which those people were dancing. It was then that he remembered the torches. And the persecutions for being different. And it was, at that moment, when he turned away from there, accepting his loneliness.
The Bottle of Malvasia
The first bars of Boccherini's Adagio announced the end of the radio broadcast of the adaptation of the novel Frankenstein. The two men remained seated in front of the device with their bodies numb with tension.
The younger one sighed and went to the kitchen. He returned with a bottle of malvasia and two glasses. The other was still terrified. Only then did his huge friend look up and smile.
Untitled
And from the darkness, his deformed eyes watch the boat move away, feeling a deep relief, for his imminent death will free him from all the evil that befell him. He leaves his body to drift, and sleeps peacefully. Unfortunately for the unfortunate, he wakes up on the coast, lying on the sand. He begins to cry inconsolably and runs towards the depths of the continent.
Years later, Walton turns on the radio: "Breaking news! The legend is true, allegedly the Yeti has been sighted in the Alps, exactly..."
He turns off the radio:
"Sister, it seems the creature did not find death."
Frankend
Faced with the most dismal weather, his fate was unpredictable. Fatigue overcame him. Then he heard a voice desperately begging his forgiveness. The wandering creature awoke and found himself inside that raft stranded on the shore of an island. A silhouette approached. It was tall and clumsy. He was speechless when he saw her... she was like his soulmate, identical to him. She helped him up and led him to a cabin. There, while the opera played on the radio, a specter that dazzled the same sun surprised them both and whispered "there is my redemption" and disappeared.
In the courtyard
The girl liked to look out the window at night, to see the wet moon while it rained cats and dogs, her mother darned socks under the light of a candle and to the sound of the music coming from an old radiola, down in her garden, adorned by the rain, a silhouette swaying on her swing could hardly be made out.
She believed that he was not a monster, but a man, because he wept disconsolately.
She was not afraid to look at him, until he saw her and fled.
He was afraid of humans.
New path
With his eyes closed and lying on that fragile vessel, the monster let each of his sorrows and mistakes flow like a tortuous radio frequency that distracted him from the passage of time.
Even though the ship touched shore, he insisted on his mental torture, until the warmth of a caress made him lean suddenly.
"Are you okay?" said the woman.
"I don't deserve anyone's concern," he replied gruffly, standing up.
"You're freezing. Despite my blindness, I can help you," she insisted, taking his hand.
A strange sensation invaded his body... and he smiled.
Untitled
....friend, don't run away, I'll have to take apart your head, I'll have to steal your illusion, I'll have to eliminate your ingenuity, your light, your conscience and return you to inertia, to inertia on the stretcher, you're moving away into the sea, I'm sorry but your greatness doesn't come from you, nor from me, your creator comes from the circuit of an old radio that I installed in your brain, and today I miss my radio, its whisper, its company. You have given me greatness, ingenuity, madness, but it was her. I miss her, I'm sorry, don't go away and leave me without her!...
Affinities
The sailors who rescued the monster could not distinguish, in the darkness of night, the face of the beast. Many jumped overboard. But one remained on deck. He was a blind and deaf old man with a wooden leg and an artificial hand. "He looks like me," thought the creature, and sat down beside him to rest from the hard day. On the radio, someone assured that the weather would be good for sailing.
Creatures in the water
In the lighthouse house, the man heard the news on the radio. A monster was nearby and could be dangerous. The old man went up to the lookout and stood for a while watching the calm sea. Suddenly a flash of lightning startled him, making his skin crawl. Something was stirring at the bottom. He brought the light of the huge bulb closer and a jolt of terror suddenly paralyzed him. It was a multitude of strange fish. It looked like someone had taken apart a whole school of fish and then put the pieces together at random to return them to the water.
The doubt
The little ones turned off the radio and snuggled into their beds.
"What will happen now?" said the youngest.
"The monster drowns," replied the eldest. "Now go to sleep before Mom finds out.
"Is it true that they tore him to pieces?" insisted the little one.
"It's true," protested his brother. "But you must go to sleep. Tomorrow we'll listen to the other chapter.
The boy turned over in bed. He took out the flashlight hidden under his pillow and shone it for a while on the huge dark spot on his left thigh.
"No," he said to himself. "Mom assures me it's just a mole."
Nostalgia
On the raft, the creature thought of his father. Dr. Frankenstein had also been his only friend. He remembered him teaching him lessons, listening to the radio while he wrote his notes, walking through the castle with him. None of that existed anymore. In the distance the sky was lit up with lightning. The monster advanced in that direction. Something about those electrical drawings seemed familiar to him and he couldn't stop. Like flies, when they are caught by the light of a lamp.
Untitled
A great storm plunged the creature into the depths of the sea. The inhabitants of those waters fled at the sight of him, except for the shark that prowled around him; it examined him, harassing him with its presence and imposing its dominance. Frankenstein smiled at him -except for loneliness he was not afraid of anything, not even fear- deciding to let himself be carried away by the force of the sea to submit to its power.
Meanwhile, Walton's ignorance of this fact led him to live in continuous suspicion.
"Boy, turn off that radio, it's time to sleep!"
The immigrant
The light returned over the horizon and he saw the coast. He was learning what life was all about: fighting and forging a destiny. Flying with the wings of nonconformity and discovering oneself. Finding love. Also, life was not only something natural, but it was constrained by the economy.
When Frankenstein's creature got off the raft. Some uniformed people asked him for his passport. He didn't understand anything. They arrested him and took him to an immigrant center. While on the radio they talked about new boats arriving on the coast.
Frankenstein 20th Century
Without delay, I went on the radio myself.
"Arctic station, this is Captain Walton," I called. "A dangerous murderer is approaching your coordinates by sea. Shoot to kill, I repeat, shoot to kill. Over."
"This is Arctic station," a young voice replied. "Did you say shoot to kill?"
"Don't wait for him to get close to you, if you want to stay alive," I said, feeling like a desperate cabin boy.
Then, broken voices of interference. And, in the end, silence.
Untitled
The moon illuminated the coast where the wind-driven boat had arrived. The monster collapsed and fell to the ground. His end was near. Before closing his eyes, he wept bitterly.
Three centuries later, a team of archaeologists discovered a mummified being under a layer of ice. The discovery was communicated by radio to the "Osiris Artificial Intelligence Center", Mary, the person in charge of the program, carried out an experiment in order to insert a spark of computer life into that battered brain.
One stormy night he disappeared strangely and was never seen again.
The purge
The creature wandered the merciless ocean for weeks. Finally he sighted land. It was a grim-looking island, surrounded by huge walls, stone buildings and covered in fog. Upon landing, the phenomenon encountered something even more disconcerting... The inhabitants were an exact replica of him. One of the clones led him to the central prison, as he had to recognize a prisoner. There, crucified on the wall and dying, was Frankenstein, his creator... Through the radio, a voice from beyond the grave said: "Welcome to the Underworld of Resurrection and Atonement..."
The new Promethea
The local radio reported the chance discovery of a strange life form: The "woman" showed Daphne's desecrated arms stitched to Aphrodite's entrails; Beatrice's shapely legs patched to Chione's angelic feet, which dazzled white when the blood gushing from her flesh dried as she stitched, with soft thread, the muscles and nerves; Medusa's severed head -perfectly attached to the rest of the body- completed the experiment.
"The creature" was waiting for the monster on the other side of the mist to love him..., but you, Victor Frankenstein, would never approve.
Scapegoat
After a week of sailing, the raft arrived at an inhabited bay. Since that monstrosity did not seem aggressive, the mayor of the town assigned him to the communal sawmill. To the rhythm of the songs that played at all hours on a transistor radio, he did the work of three men alone. The night they murdered the miller's daughter, several neighbors pointed to him as the culprit. Without putting him on trial, they decided that he would die dismembered. A few years later, a guy who had been arrested for robbery confessed to being the perpetrator of that and other crimes.
The theme park
Sailing adrift, it took him months to sight land. He landed near a set of gigantic artifacts illuminated with colored light bulbs. Upon discovering his presence, several employees led him to the director of the enclosure. Minutes later he was already attached by thick chains to the wall of a kind of Gothic castle. During each session, which is even announced on radio programs and has been performed fifty times a day for half a century, he is forced to stand upright and look straight ahead, before the terrified or joking comments of hundreds of visitors of all ages.
Untitled
Abandoned to his fate, soaked, without food, only the music of a small radio kept him company, and with the fear that a dozen madmen carrying their torches would chase him.
He was adrift, a raft rocked by the waves, a motionless body struggling to survive, for the second time.
The banging of the raft could be heard as it hit the breakwater of that port where a young woman was trying to help that man. It was then that Frankenstein turned on himself, and showed the nakedness of his soul to the one who would be his faithful companion and friend.
At ease
Since he didn't understand how the oars worked, he lay down at full length and let the waters carry him nowhere. On his back, he watched the starry sky struggle to hide. He was at ease. Before sleep overcame him, he rummaged through the pockets of his coat and found the small radio stolen from the laboratory. With a clumsy gesture he tried to turn it on, but he couldn't. He gave up. After all, he was just a newly created monster.
I will survive
That being that emerged from the feverish mind of Dr. Frankenstein would surely end up submerged in the waters of the ocean. Science would not miss him, thought the captain of the ship in charge of transporting him to the depths, after having fulfilled the order of the bosses. "I hope it's the last thing that madman comes up with," he said to himself. As he turned to starboard to return to port, Gloria Gaynor's black voice with 'I will survive' was playing on the radio. And the moon sketched an ironic smile.
Island
He unfolded his cape as a sail, holding it tightly so that the wind would move him. Soon, he glimpsed the silhouette of an island, where he landed not without effort. There were footprints in the sand, he was not alone. Driven by instinct -he was hungry- he followed the trail until he got lost in a jungle into which he entered. Walking aimlessly, he found nothing to eat but a radio. He tried to bite it, but what he did was turn it on. The harmonious voice of the announcer comforted him and he forgot to eat. When the batteries ran out, the monster left the island.
María Clara
The girl got lost last night, how was I supposed to know where she was? I saw her leave the office after ten as usual, we all know she's not a woman to be trifled with... How could I follow her? She can't evade us without warning, no one leaves here in such an irregular way... if you know anything or if she shows up I want you to tell me, for now we leave it on stand bikes in a few hours we'll resume it... having said that guys let's go to the mics in five minutes we're on the air...
Screenwriter Blues
Highways roll like knots on fingers, jewels tying skin. Cadillac breathing carbon, a hundred miles an hour, four hundred horses on a white line. I'm running to make love to a model whose name I don't know. Last friend left. I murdered my producer.
The radio is on, the announcer bellows:
"Women were a curse. Men built Paramount, men built L.A. Rock lives. Five in the morning, the sun returns to us. Now, hits"
L.A. unleashed us. Aesthetically pleasing teenagers. Teenagers carrying automatic weapons, full of love. It makes them go to her, assimilates us, rips her apart. I silenced the announcer.
Renaissance
After a week of sailing, a yacht approached him. Upon bringing him aboard, they discovered with astonishment that the castaway was almost three meters tall and moved like an automaton. They also observed that the monstrosity seemed immensely sad. The skipper owned a radio station and, on his way back to port, he offered him to participate in a live interview. His intervention was an unexpected audience success. Thus began a new happy stage, which half a century later still continues. Every Thursday, the program's many followers long to hear a new episode of his life, always the fruit of his prodigious imagination.
The bait
The creature felt his body breaking. The ocean had reopened his seams. From the ship came the syncopated and funeral echo of a radio. On the third day, a cartilaginous triangle began to circle the raft. An idea opened up in the monster's misty mind. That could be an answer to his yearnings. He plunged his hand into the water, offering it as live bait. The great fish hesitated for a moment. The prey seemed too easy. Frankenstein smiled as he felt the first bite. Ending his days as food for the shark would perhaps restore the lost unity.
Franksen
That of going unnoticed was an art he had cultivated over the decades; the key was knowing how to abandon even those radio conversations that managed to make him believe that perhaps the world was already prepared for him. Survival and solitude went hand in hand: no one should be curious, not so much as to want to find him.
Luckily he wasn't very different from conventional humans, and like them, he succumbed to temptation: he had talked too much, and now someone was traveling to find his whereabouts.
Soon he would have company.
Then he would hide the body and pack his bags.
The shape of unconsciousness
How naive I had been! Not even the most easily frightened person would have paid the slightest attention to that radio news. An implausible news item, taken from the imagination of Mary Shelley and bordering on all the limits of fantasy. That feeling of despair on the part of the operators who transmitted the warning. That reaction of the listeners who believed it was a joke. A lunatic admirer of Victor Frankenstein? Impossible.
Meanwhile, repenting of such naivety, I contemplated that flaccid hand sewn to my wrist with determination and that shuddering smile, taken from hell itself.
Uncertainty and laments
Disoriented and distressed. A radio that highlighted his disappearance. Burns that reminded him that nothing in his body was his. Hands snatched from those who can no longer touch. Legs stolen from the one who could once run. And a heart stripped from the one who can no longer feel. He existed, that much was clear. He had life, who could doubt it? However, he knew he was a monster, but not because of the harm he could do to others, but because of the harm he had already done. It was a life that implied the death of others.
The alienation of knowledge
Crows pecked at that putrefied flesh, dismembering with impassivity and perseverance a figure that seemed to be that of a man. Their lugubrious and sharp beaks stained that already corrupted body. A body whose limbs, forced to be in union with the rest, belonged to different owners. It was the result of a psychopath disguised as a doctor. Working in broad daylight and consumed under the music that that almost obsolete radio uttered, he carried out his experiments. He was the real monster and not that inert subject that was being devoured by crows.
A million years ago
The creature awoke on a shore of black sand. Thirsty, he walked to a lagoon of greenish waters and enjoyed its taste. There were people around him, but they didn't seem scared. Someone shouted: Cut!
Raquel Welch wore a prehistoric bikini. She approached the monster and caressed his face.
"What's your name?"
"Adam," Frankenstein stammered.
"I like it, Don," Welch said to the director, as she took the monster's hand.
Adam soon fell asleep.
The journalist, on the radio, asked Don Chaffey why they had suspended filming.
"That place seemed made for him."
Untitled
How many waves fell on the monster, floating, leaning on the raft? That didn't affect him. What did affect his aching borrowed conscience was the incessant loneliness.
"For this you have given me life!" he complained in his innermost being of copper and aluminum terminals.
The answer was given by the salts of the seawater, accumulating substances on the grotesque electrodes, forming a new circuit on the fetid muscles.
Radio Lanzarote began to play loudly on his skin, generating that contact called to fill the void of humanity of the poor beast, dispelling loneliness forever.
