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"And soon the boy, elate with that new power, more daring grew, and left his guide, and higher, with ambitious flight, soared, aiming at the skies! Upon his wings, the rays of noon struck scorching, and dissolved the waxen compact of their plumes: — and down he toppled, beating wild with naked arms the unsustaining air, and with vain cry shrieking for succour from his Sire! The sea that bears his name received him as he fell."
"I'm sorry?" I, who had been staring at the cabin's dark wall and losing myself in thought, found myself brought back down to Earth by the muttering of the ailing friend in my care. "Forgive me for not listening, dear Frankenstein. I did not quite hear what you said."
"Oh, no, Captain, I implore you, pay no mind to my solitary ramblings." The light in the room was negligible, but even through the darkness, I could see that Frankenstein was experiencing a period of lucidity, which was a rare sight. "I was simply quoting Metamorphoses. My Clerval used to talk at me about those poems so much, I find that the story of Icarus and Daedalus is still near perfectly imprinted in my mind, even after all these years."
"Ah, I see." A small smile wormed its way onto my face as the picture of a young Clerval talking Frankenstein's ear off about the writing of Ovid came to life in my head. Even though I never had and never would have the opportunity to meet Henry Clerval, I liked to imagine that I had a good idea of what he looked like, considering Frankenstein's endless rambling that must have painted a picture of him so vivid and detailed for me.
My thoughts wandered off again in the brief silence that followed, although Frankenstein did not take too long to break it.
"Dear Walton, would you allow me the peace of telling a story of triviality from my childhood days? I do not wish to waste your time, yet I find it brings me great comfort to ruminate on those easier days long before I committed myself to total damnation."
He had no reason to word this announcement as a question. Not when I could never deny him anything.
"Our ship is beleaguered by icebergs on all sides; we have nowhere to go." I drew up a chair and sat by Frankenstein's side. "We have all the time in the world."
“Hm, alright then.” A smile and laugh as bittersweet as Frankenstein’s entire existence stretched the skin of his sallow cheeks. “Telling stories like this reminds me of my youth, for I would spend many of those days on the receiving end of dear Clerval’s wild fairytales… I digress. Once upon a time, there lay a small clearing in the forest…”
…where I spent my glory days, ran through by a creek disemboguing into Lake Geneva, one enjoyable walk away from my childhood home. Clerval, Elizabeth, and I spent many a day in that forest, in that clearing, by that creek. We were not supposed to swim in it - Elizabeth especially, for my mother thought wetting her dress the most unladylike of pursuits, yet the two great angels of my life cared not for anything venturing to barricade them from merriment. I never fancied myself a swimmer, nor brave. Thus I never joined them immediately when they leapt into the creek with raucous laughter and shouts, instead screeching and covering my face as water from Clerval's dive splashed me, rivulets running down my arms. Were it not for them, I would never have stepped foot into the cold water of our nameless, secret creek. And yet they kept begging me to join them there, and I had it in me not to say no. The way I describe this, Walton, you would think them Odysseus's sirens - creatures of the water, calling to me, and I would follow them anywhere they go. Even now, I still wish to follow them to where they now lay far beyond my reach, and if you had any questions as to why I yearn so longingly for death, this is why.
Ahem - I got sidetracked. My point is, I always ended up joining them in the creek, for my own cowardice was Lilliputian compared to the desire I had and always will have to be close to them.
One summer, the kind bachelor aging in solitude across the street built us a makeshift swing hanging from a tree branch protruding from the edges of our clearing, dangling over the rustling creek. He completed this endeavor in the first week of July.
The next time my friends and I visited that clearing, Clerval lifted Elizabeth into the swing and we pushed her back and forth. I still remember the wondrous glee of my Elizabeth's laughter as she found her feet lifting up and capable of touching the sky. Such laughter suddenly choked, strangled by a startled yelp as Clerval accidentally pushed Elizabeth a little bit too hard, sending her flying from the swing, greeting July's incandescent sun, then splashing with great force into the water.
Clerval and I ran to the edge of the riverbank in terror, watching her blond hair sway in the water as she plummeted to the depths and then kicked her way back up, breaking the surface of the water and laughing, her cheeks, still fat from youth, painted with a rosy pink. "I just flew off the swing and then bam! Into the water! That was so fun! Do you just land in the water every time you jump off the swing?"
The deep chestnut of Clerval's eyes sparkled with the intensity of a thousand stars. "Wait, I gotta try!" He sprinted for the swing, grabbing the ropes and yanking himself to a standing position on the wooden boards, the whole thing swaying from his force.
"Clerval, no, what if you land on your head or-" My ever valorous friend leapt from the swing, and water accosted my freshly laundered shirt before I had the chance to complete my articulation of concern. Panic swelled in my throat as I perceived a mop of fire-like hair stay curling underwater for eternal seconds, and I feared that great amounts of water would obliterate the flames. But Clerval, like Elizabeth, rose again, a carefree symphony reaching my ears as I struggled to quiet my jackrabbit heart.
Looking back on this now, I realize that watching my companions hurl themselves into the water with such ferocity was the first time I truly feared death. Not my own, but theirs. Even then, I knew that if Clerval and Elizabeth failed to come to the surface of the water, I would rather fling myself to the murky depths, letting the crush of my lungs distract from the splintering of my heart. Fending off death forever was my goal since then, my ardency only fueled further by the passing of my mother. How ironic is it that my desire to protect my dearest friends from the sharp talons of Death only catapulted them into His arms sooner…
I have found myself distracting from my tale again. I must stop doing that.
Anyway. My two friends scrambled out of the water, soaking wet. Sunlight caught the water dripping from their frames, glowing and making them seem ever the more alive. "We should do that again!" Clerval ran back to the swing, Elizabeth hot on his heels. They both reached the swing at the same time, and a very loud, wet tussle commenced in which both of them attempted to lay claim to being the first to jump from the swing. In the end, Clerval claimed victory, the swing rocking back and forth as he gripped the frayed hemp ropes and looked over the still rippling water with excitement radiating from his boyish face.
They leapt from the swing and into the creek over and over again as I watched from my stagnant position, frozen by terror. The fear dwindled gradually as I watched them land in the water time and time again and bear no injuries, but I do not think I fully relaxed even once during this whole ordeal. My friends were on the very top of the world, having finally mastered every child's dream of being able to fly.
Perhaps it was my quiescence that kept my being invisible to Clerval and Elizabeth for such a long time; or perhaps they were so blissed out by the jumping around that they neglected to perceive a creature so terrified as me. Most likely it was a combination of both. In any case, their ignorance of my presence could not last forever. By chance, Elizabeth happened to look directly into my nervous eyes and remember my existence. "Victor! You haven't jumped yet! How could I have forgotten?"
I shook my head vehemently. "No, no! You have not hurt me by not allowing me to jump - in fact, quite the contrary-"
"Nonsense!" Elizabeth clambered out of the water and ran to me, her drenched hand clasping around mine, and I could somehow still feel its warmth through the film of cool water that enveloped it. She dragged me to the swing, my fearful protests echoing around the clearing the whole way there.
"Victor, are you scared?" She turned to look back at me as her fingers wrapped loosely around the swing's rope.
"Gee, what do you think?!" In vexation, I thrust my pointer finger at a rock by the edge of the creek. "You two are terrifying me! This entire jumping business is far too unsafe - you have no idea how surprised I am that neither you nor Clerval have cracked your heads open on that rock yet!"
Elizabeth looked at the rock, then back at me, mildly tempered. "I think you'll find that the rock is too far away for us to reach, jumping."
"You could still land on the bank and break a bone!"
Sympathy flickered in Elizabeth's eyes, albeit a amused type. "It's really not that bad! The creek is plenty wide."
I rose an eyebrow at her doubtfully.
Her gaze softened. "Here, I will jump off again to show you exactly what to expect. I believe you would find jumping fun, once you stop being scared." She tucked a stray curl behind my ear before turning back around and stepping on the swing. I backed away, desiring not to get whapped in the face with a wooden board.
Flying through the air, my Elizabeth might have been an angel. Her white dress, although weighed down by water, floated behind her, as did those golden tresses that were so beautiful even in such early childhood. If my memory is not mistaken, even the sun formed a ring around her head, bearing the form of a halo.
She landed in the water with another loud splash, and indeed, her landing place was quite far away from the rock that terrified me so. Clerval swam over to her and the both of them, my angels, my sorrows, my soulmates looked to me expectantly and cheerfully, calling for me to join them in flight, in drowning.
Even now, I still wish to let my lifeless body sink to the bottom of the ocean, if only I could join them down there.
Their call brought me the courage to grip the ropes with both hands, rough threads bristling against the skin of my palms. One foot on the swing, and I pulled myself up to let the other join it, the muscles in my arms and abdomen clenching as I did. Wood grains tickled the soles of my bare feet as the swing swayed. Clerval and Elizabeth cheered for me to jump down, the noise echoing over the rushing of the water along with all the other soft noises of a forest.
Courage and devotion had fired through me in a short bout, propelling me to this standing position on the gently oscillating swing. Here, my bravery was spent; I froze on the swing as I perceived the truth of the landscape below me, the rippling creek surrounded by overhanging, vibrantly lush emerald grass and moss-laden, scraggy rocks. There were a thousand places for me to hit my head or break a bone. Or what if I landed in the water and failed to come back up? As I have already stated, I am no swimmer. I feared that this endeavor would surely lead to my death.
"I can't do it!" My voice shook, mimicking the slight tremble in my limbs.
"I'll catch you if anything happens!" Clerval's divine voice floated up to me as he stood in the water, red hair glowing as if he were the Holy Sepulchre on Great Saturday. The shine in his flushed cheeks and warm eyes only added to the fiery radiance of his entire frame. In this fashion, I looked to him, and the flames of faith gazed back.
My beloved Clerval had always trusted me, and I know that his faith never wavered, not once, even when I by no means deserved it. Walton, you know just how deeply I trusted him in return. In my grief for my mother, in my total dilapidation, I let him carry my whole heart. My trust in him as my ward is timeless, and it extended to even those childhood days, standing over the creek that was ours. I was safe, jumping into the water despite my fear of the rocks. I was safe because Henry Clerval was there.
So I jumped.
My hands and feet liberated themselves from the scratching of the roughly built swing, and time froze. Suspended with nothing above me and nothing below me, I had no guides to know whether I was flying or falling. The rustling tops of green trees greeted me, accompanied by the chorus of winds and birdsong. I reached into the air and watched my hand darken to shadow as my palm passed over the surface of the sun, eternal whiteness framing the lightlessness of the back of my hand. Like Icarus, I felt the warmth of the sun brush over my palm. Like Icarus, I fell to the water.
I just told you that in that moment, I was unable to discern between flying and falling. You might find it a surprise to hear that I also could not tell the difference between falling through water or air. For seconds, they felt the same - plummeting through some unchanging matter, unsure of where I would end up. I was weightless, even though gravity was definitely pulling me down. The splash my body created made its way to my ears, although the sound was muted, and I didn't fully process what it meant. My eyes were closed the entire time - I had felt the water hit them as I fell, and did not desire to irritate my eyes any further than they already were. The chill of the water accosted my body, and this was the shock that told me that I was in fact in the water now, and no longer soaring through July's steamy air.
I thank the heavens that the water was relatively shallow, for I was easily able to stretch out my body and find my hand above water, then follow that hand to breathable air. I did not receive such blessings when it came to the other oceans I have fallen into over the course of my life. But this time, I lifted my head above the surface of the creek and shook water from my hair, blinking it from my eyes and rubbing my face dry. I had swallowed some water when I dove, greatly angering my throat. I found myself coughing aggressively in an attempt to expel the water from my lungs, which would have ended in me plunging my head into the water again if not for Clerval diligently paddling to my side, lifting me up to sit on the riverbank so I could completely double over and still keep my head in the air.
When my coughing ceased and I was able to blink my eyes open without getting water into them, I lifted my head to see Clerval looking at me from the creek, one gentle hand on my knee and a face brushed with enough care to be concerned, but not enough worry to make me feel pitied. Elizabeth was near us, the same expression on her face. "Are you okay?" She asked, tilting her head.
Still breathless, I nodded, digging my fingers into the soft mud of the riverbank.
Sentinel, burning with devotion. Henry Clerval was truly the chivalrous knight from his fairytales, one whose faith helped him be as capable of saving nations and desperate people as his sword. Nothing is as tender yet powerful as his faith in me, since I am his lord yet he is my savior. We bleed for oaths sworn to each other like the vows of knights and beggars to God, yet he in his angelhood is actually capable of committing to his vow; I, the blasphemous human, the prophesied devil, am incompetent of repaying my endless debt to him, although I still try to do so, wretched arms reaching over graves to fulfill my promise to his divinity.
And Elizabeth - everything about her was so gentle and healing, imbuing even a miserable wretch like myself with gaiety and light. I like to think she really was an angel. In this moment and all moments that followed, only an angel's caress could have soothed my bleeding heart, banishing my demons to exile. Only an angel could have fought so tirelessly for justice while being such a tender lover.
I realize I have described Clerval as a warden and Elizabeth as a healer. I do not wish to give you the wrong impression of either of them. What would you have me call Clerval, the man who so diligently nursed me back to health throughout that long and cruel winter without allowing a single complaint to spill from his lips? And what would you call Elizabeth, the woman brave enough to look a dozen juries in the eye and defend poor Justine’s honor and innocence with every passionately labored breath in her body, especially to a crowd of men who had already written Justine off as a hopeless soul? My two companions were sentry and caregiver both, and I would be loath to force either of them into narrow boxes.
They were truly angels in every sense of the word. They cared for me as Michael did the people and lands of Israel, except they were kinder, more faithful, and more forgiving of a sinner like me. Perhaps they were the only things that kept my younger days halcyon as they were, for as soon as I distanced myself from them, I found my world razed by demons. And now that they are irrevocably departed from this mortal plane and to their natural home forever, there is nothing stopping me from falling to Dante’s seventh circle of Hell.
”Well, glad to see that you’re doing alright.” Elizabeth waded closer to my other side, leaning against my skinny thigh. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
”I guess not.” Having caught my breath, I was finally able to talk.
”Great!” Clerval grinned, and it was an innocent, lovely smile at first; I found the corners of my own lips stretching slightly across my cheeks in return.
Then his eyes flicked to meet Elizabeth’s, and something changed in both of their faces.
Suspicion just barely rooted in my chest during that split second after the expression change - and then Clerval and Elizabeth’s hands tightened around my legs and pulled down, violently yanking me back into the water with a loud and messy splash.
I screamed.
My friends laughed.
Even after pulling this devilish trick on me, their laughter still sounded like angels playing on clouds.
When I resurfaced, it was with two wild waves of water that I hurled directly into Clerval and Elizabeth’s faces. Thus a three-sided water war commenced, the clearing echoing with splashes, screeching, and hysterical laughter. Hours passed enthralled by these wonderfully childish delights until the sun dissolved in tangerine ribbons threaded through Lake Geneva, forcing us three to remove ourselves from the water and make our ways home with mud-soaked and sopping wet hair and clothes. We received quite the scolding from our parents… yet I regret none of this.
Oh, if only I could return to those careless days, every minute spent with my departed angels by my side…
Wings of purest white would befit them, wide shields lined with the softest and warmest feathers, lifting them up high enough to waltz with the moon and banter with the sun. I would make them those wings, the same way I would sell my centuries-old name for royal recognition of Clerval’s poetry and Elizabeth’s paintings, both stunning beyond compare. But even without wings, we are already all Icarus.
Clerval was with me alone just before he died; he that endlessly warm fire, incapable of inflicting pain and devoid of sin holding my wretched soul on the very precipice of damnation, and somehow the strength of his love forged paradise for us both. It was then, flying too close to heaven, to its celestial bodies, that he was stolen away from me and the world by a monster of my own design. Trying to help me, heal me, and love me was too much, even for one as valiant and divine as he. I pushed him over the edge, which I will regret with endless fervor for the limited number of my remaining days. Oh, dear friend, you should have deserted me when I swooned in that cursed Ingolstadt apartment - then you would have landed safely on the other side of the sea. But your kindness has desecrated your own wings, and now you are gone, flesh and bone sinking to the seafloor, gone, gone, gone-
… No, Walton, everything is fine. I am sorry.
For everything.
Elizabeth and I were newlywed upon her passing. We were finally where we had been sprinting to the whole duration of our wickedly short lives - our two souls intertwined for eternity, the most blessed of unions, a merging into one before my other half was torn out of me, my tortured flesh and bone ripping out of my body alongside her, all of me fused with all of her and left an extirpated wreck in her death. I was half my darkness in the absence of her light. Why, why were our souls tied together so? She could have thrived in weightlessness, yet by the wishes of our parents, I soaked her wings and weighed her down. Had she never been my bride, had she stayed untethered and far away from me, she would live still, the rosy glow in her full cheeks never to be eaten away by some hungry fish in the darkness of the Icarian Sea.
And what of me - wretched, loathsome me, the man whose every movement ends in the destruction of all those in my vicinity and the devastation of my own self? In this modern reinvention of classic tragedy, perhaps I am everything causal of despair and nothing worthy of salvation. To the rest of the world, I must be the wicked sun; I burn life away from anyone who touches me, and they fall to the navy depths. Otherwise, why should I be the sole destructor of everybody I hold dear?
Then again, per the method of my destruction, I should more closely resemble Daedalus. The sun created nothing with which to melt poor Icarus's wings - it simply shone too bright. Daedalus, to the contrary, built the melting wings that doomed his son, as I forged the abomination of nature that choked the lives out of my guardian angels. Is it not my murderous machinations, each damning decision of mine that have rendered my sweet companions bereft of breath, blood, and life? I am the creator and the murderer. Cherished blood stains my hands because of my creation.
I am the sun, I am Daedalus, and yet above it all, just like my companions, I am Icarus himself. I attempted to rewrite the rules of the universe with human hands - and where has that gotten me? My insatiable ambition has swallowed me whole and left me to suffocate in its gelid maw. I tried to evade death, which just led the reaper to meet me at every turn. If I ever had wings, they were ripped from me as punishment for not staying in my lane, feathers melting off my back and getting caught in the sea breeze as I plummeted to my doom.
Clerval, Elizabeth, and I - we launched from the swing and their wings brushed sunlight’s glare, then melted as we all fell to the water, one by one. I wish we could have kicked off the silt of the creek’s bottom and laughed our ways back to the light, yet the Icarian Sea is no shallow creek; all of us have drowned. It is my own recklessly impassioned ambition that catapulted my friends too close for salvation to a cruel inferno of a melting sun.
Oh, what in this world could possibly possess a more stingingly bitter taste than hindsight? I wish dearly that I could return to those childhood days in the creek and ward Clerval and Elizabeth off of jumping, lest the sun beat them down to the water. I could warn them away from me, the malison that weighs down their wings. I could stay far away from the swing and the sky, I could have never tried to fashion anybody a pair of wings. Could have, would have - I should have done all that, then everything would be fine, but I made all the wrong choices - oh Lord, what have I done?!
… Do I bleed now? No matter, I have spilled enough blood. Surely I deserve to lose my own blood as well. I only apologize for defiling your bedsheets.
… My tragedy is now ink-bound and immutable, and the only thing left to do now is regret.
And for the waterlogged wings of fallen angels, commence the rites of sepulture.
Filaments of melancholy and madness had settled over the crypts in Frankenstein's eyes, the ones that reminded me so deeply of the Arctic Sea's broken ice. Towards the end of his soliloquy, he had carved deep gouges into the wasted flesh of his bony arms, impressions of his lunulae welling with blood that dripped and soaked into his miserly bed. This expression on his face, the infliction of pain on his own body, and the rising hysteria in his raspy voice all indicated to me that he was spiraling towards another episode of delirium on the verge of death, so I, with one hand pressing a reddening cloth to his wounds, put the back of my other hand to his forehead. Doing so was not unlike thrusting my hand into a blazing fire. "Frankenstein, your temperature has skyrocketed again. Perhaps you should attempt to get some sleep - I know your nightmares have been keeping you up for the past few days, and it would benefit you to be immobile for some time to allow healing of your wounds. And do remove your mind from the story about the creek. I enjoyed hearing your tale, but it seems as though recalling that specific memory is causing you harm, in contrary to your previous statements that it would bring you emotional relief." Voice like that of a mother, I stood up and adjusted his pillows so he could comfortably rest his head without straining his neck, then brought his meager blanketing up over his chest. "Here is a new cloth - do keep that pressed to your injuries. I shall go out to see if it is possible to fetch you bandages and a more adequate blanket."
"Don't bother," Frankenstein muttered, eyes half-closed.
I looked back at him, already halfway to the door. "What do you mean?"
"You should not… be so kind to me." The blankets were thin enough for me to see Frankenstein's diseased frame shifting sluggishly in discomfort underneath. "Do not be an angel. Especially not to a wretch, a demon such as myself…"
"Oh, my dear Frankenstein." I relaxed and walked a little closer to him, brushing the sweaty hairs stuck to his forehead out of his face. "Just because you think yourself unworthy of care does not mean I find it a waste of time to give it to you."
He shook his head about as violently as a man could when he was laying down whilst weakened by severe illness. "No, no, don't…" He muttered something incoherent - a poorly enunciated jumble of French, English, and German that I could not ever hope to make out. "… no wings. I don't want you to drown."
His eyelids fluttered, then fully closed, and my heart shattered as I stepped outside, a gale blowing over the ship's deck. For a second, I thought I heard the angelic chiming of children's laughter in the wind, and then the illusion was swallowed up by a dark and bitter ocean.
inkk_splatters Mon 18 Aug 2025 06:55PM UTC
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snow-on-the-beach (SnowSecretsHere) Mon 18 Aug 2025 07:16PM UTC
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snow-on-the-beach (SnowSecretsHere) Mon 18 Aug 2025 10:29PM UTC
Last Edited Mon 18 Aug 2025 10:29PM UTC
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snow-on-the-beach (SnowSecretsHere) Sat 23 Aug 2025 12:47PM UTC
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