Medusa Frequency

by Russell Hoban

 NNVSNU TSRUNGH, said the green letters on the monitor screen of my Apple II computer that rainy night in November. This screen isn't like a piece of paper; the words come out of a green dancing and the excitation of phosphors. I'm the one who makes the words appear but I don't always know who or what is speaking.

 Who's there? I said letter by letter on the screen. No answer. Speak up, I said. What are you afraid of?

 NVSNU TSRUNGH, it said.

 You are afraid that you exist.

 NNVSNU DNNGH.

 You don't want to exist.

 NNVSNU RRNDU TS'IRNH TS'IRNH TS'IRNH WNNGRH.

 An existence such as yours is too dreadful to be thought of. Is this the Kraken speaking?

 DON'T THINK OF ME. IF YOU THINK OF ME I MAY BE REAL. LET ME NOT BE REAL. LET ME NOT BE REAL, the Kraken said again.

 There was nothing I could do about that and I didn't know what to say so I said nothing.

 YOU DON'T TELL ME THAT I'M NOT REAL.

 Again I did not say anything.

 THEN I AM REAL. I HAVE BEEN THOUGHT OF TOO MANY TIMES UNTIL THERE HAS COME TO BE SUCH A THING AS I, THE KRAKEN, LIVING WHERE I LIVE AND PERCIPIENT ALWAYS.

 Tell me about your beginning.

 IN THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS WAS MY BEGINNING, IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE TERROR.

 Whose was the terror?

 THE TERROR WAS ITSELF AND THE TERROR WAS OF ITSELF. THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE, THERE WAS NO ONE TO HOLD THE TERROR, THERE WAS ONLY THE TERROR.

 Terror of what?

 TERROR OF WHAT MIGHT BE, OF UNIVERSES AND WORLDS THAT MIGHT BE, AND THE ILLUSION OF TIME.

 What came then?

 FROM THE TERROR CAME THE AWARENESS OF IT. FROM THE TERROR CAME A TREMBLING AND WRINKLING OF SILENCE THAT LISTENED.

 Nothing else? No one to listen with that silence?

 NO ONE TO LISTEN, NO ONE TO HOLD THE TERROR; ONLY THE ELECTRIC SILENCE THAT SHOOK AND WRINKLED AS I BECAME YOUR MIND.

 My mind holding the terror, my mind alone.

 YOUR MIND HOLDING THE TERROR BUT IT WAS TOO MUCH FOR YOU TO HOLD ALONE. YOU THOUGHT OF ME AND YOU MADE ME HOLD THE TERROR THAT YOU COULD NOT HOLD. YOU THINK OF ME STILL, YOU THINK OF ME NOW.

 I have always thought of you, have always had you in mind, have always heard the circles of your terror widening in the deeps. I think of you as the great cephalopod, ancient of the deeps, great thinking head in the blackness of the ultimate deep. I think of you as the Kraken. Even little children have an idea of you, they draw a great head with all the limbs growing out of it.

 I AM THE KRAKEN, ANCIENT OF THE DEEPS, MONSTROUS CEPHALOPOD, GREAT HEAD AT THE CENTRE OF MY MILES OF WRITHING TENTACLES IN THE BLACKNESS OF THE ULTIMATE DEEP; THE KRAKEN, MY DARK MIND WILD WITH THE TERROR OF ITSELF, SHUDDERING, WRITHING, AFRAID TO SLEEP, AFRAID TO DREAM BUT SLEEPING AGE-LONG AND DREAMING OF IMMENSITIES, OF BURSTINGS AND TRANSITIONS AND UNIMAGINABLE STATES OF BEING, DREAMING A UNIVERSE IN WHICH THERE IS SUCH A THING AS THE KRAKEN, DREAMING THAT I AM THE KRAKEN.

 Will you show yourself to me?

 I WILL SHOW MYSELF TO YOU IN SEVERAL WAYS AND WITH SEVERAL FACES.

 Have you so many faces? The Kraken said no more that night. But Eurydice has said in those three-o'-clock-in-the-morning dancing green phosphors: Of me the terror, I squatted and gave birth: born of me the Kraken in its terror at the bottom of the sea. Born of me its terror of Eurydice.