"Your work is good," he said seriously. "Too good. Not up to par on
some points, but in a few years you'll be going places. That's why I
sneaked away from them and came here--to beg you to reconsider, to stop
this writing now, before it's too late."
"You mean--you _can't_ mean--you're not--afraid of competition?"
He waved an annoyed hand. "Competition, hell! There's always room for
more. You don't understand," he went on, screwing his face into a look
of determination. "I'm trying to save your peace of mind, your sanity
perhaps. The mind is a great and powerful thing, sometimes dangerous.
All these things--these alien creatures that a science-fiction author
creates--"
"Yes?"
But he had straightened suddenly, a look of terror on a face gone
ashen. He went to the door like a man being pushed, fumbled for the
knob. "I beg of you, for your sake, forget it," he called back. Then he
was gone.
I went out on the porch but MacDonald was not in sight. I heard a
strange noise as of the flapping of great leathery wings. A shadow
passed across the lawn. I looked up.
Nothing.
* * * * *
The next morning I got a small envelope in the mail. The letter inside
read, "Enclosed is a check for your story THE MONBEAST...." I sank into
the softest chair in the world and read those wonderful, wonderful
words, and held the check in my hand and read those wonderful,
wonderful figures. I was so in a trance I hardly noticed the tiny
decimal point that scampered on tiny legs across the check. I hardly
felt the small, sharp bite--but....
My first acceptance! It was incredible the exhilaration that flowed
through me in that instant. It was like a much-needed shot of
adrenaline, like cool springwater to a thirsty man. I had a check for
a story someone thought enough of to publish. I was an author. A real,
live, honest-to-goodness author with a check in my hand to prove to a
critical world that I wasn't a bum after all. Suddenly the world was a
big, wide, wonderful place to live in, and I loved everyone in it--even
the poor, disillusioned Donald MacDonald.
But why stop here? I thought. There were more checks where that came
from. If I could sell one story, I could sell two, and then three, and
four. So I did. In a way, it was something like digging my own grave.
You don't understand that now, but in a little while you'll see the
reason why.
* * * * *
After I had haunted the newsstand for about three months, the great day
came. THE MONBEAST was the last story in the magazine (at the time I
thought they really should have featured it) and my name was misspelled
on the contents page, but it was a great day just the same. A day of
triumph. A day for rejoicing. I'd had several stories accepted during
the several months' interval, but this was the day that the fruits of
my labor became evident to the world.
I walked home with a proud, firm step, casually displaying the magazine
to the vast public eye, to friend and foe alike. I tried to act
nonchalant, as though this were old stuff to an established writer like
me. It was a day of glory, of triumph, rivaling Caesar's victorious
march into Rome.
That evening I read the story over and over again, marveling at the
perfection of its form, savoring the exquisite flavor of each delicate,
richly-hued, word, the uniqueness of each choice, well-turned phrase. I
fell asleep with the magazine in my hand.
* * * * *
The next morning the monbeast was sitting at the foot of my bed.
"Okay, okay," it said, blinking its bug-eyes at me, "don't act so
surprised. MacDonald warned you, didn't he?"
"But--but--"
"Sure, I'm real," the monbeast volunteered, scratching its scaly head
with a long-nailed finger. "That's the trouble with you guys. You're
full of imagination, but you can't face reality."
"Where--where'd you come from?"
The monbeast shrugged massive green shoulders. "The whole thing's much
too technical for me to worry about. All I know is us BEMs exist, and
we get to your dimension via science-fiction."
"That 'power of mind' MacDonald was talking about?" I said, shuddering
a bit.
"Something like that. Other forms of fiction deal with things native to
your world. Science-fiction regards us BEMs as real, so while we don't
ordinarily exist here, there's a stress created in the barrier between
us, and we come through."
"Then you're really real?"
"Practically. Right now, though, you're the only one who can see and
hear me. You haven't characterized me sufficiently so that the readers
will be convinced that I'm real. But that's okay. You'll improve."
"Thanks. But now what about you?" I said, trying to not appear
overanxious. "Are you returning to your own dimension or are you
staying here for awhile?"
* * * * *
The monbeast grinned, showing the eighty sharp-pointed teeth I knew it
possessed. "Sorry, I'm here to stay. I'm your brainchild, you know, so
I'll have to stick to you."