Grogo the Goblin
Page 32
In a movie, the hero would have rushed in to investigate. So would the protagonist of a novel. But I am neither a hero nor a protagonist, and this is not a novel in the conventional sense of the term, so I did what any normal person would do in real life. I got the hell out of there, and ran like mad through the woods and back to the River Road. It was only a matter of a few minutes before I reached the center of town, and I can tell you exactly how it felt to find myself once again in the midst of the real, substantial, no-nonsense world: I felt like Ichabod Crane making it safely across the bridge.
So here I sit in Beckskill, in what was once Alex Brown's bar, jotting down words in a notebook while Peter and Russell sit and brood over their beers. I told them what I experienced in the Sweet house, and they think that I've just let this all get to me. Maybe so. There's an awful lot in this manuscript that is true, that I remember. There's an awful lot I can't possibly verify at this late date, and a lot that must, simply must be fantasy.
Reader, you can make up your own mind. I know that you bought this book expecting to find just another horror novel, and if that's how you want to think of it, that's okay with me. I've seen to it that the story has been told, and that's all I wanted to do.
I have one final thing to tell you, and then I will put an end to the story of Grogo the Goblin.
In her letter, Karen Ostlich told me to remember the tandava, and when I first read that word I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about; but now, having looked it up, I think I understand what she was trying to tell me. The tandava is a very famous image in Asian art, so famous, in fact, that I'll bet you know what it is, even if you don't know what it's called. The tandava is the dance of Shiva.
In the artistic representation of the tandava, Shiva the Destroyer is standing upright, right leg bent slightly at the knee, left leg raised and held out horizontally in front of his body. The position of the leg gives the statue a suggestion of whirling movement. A ring of fire surrounds Shiva, and his right foot is crushing a child. Poisonous serpents grow Medusa-like from his head, and a cobra with a fully flared hood encircles his waist.
In the statues and drawings of the tandava, Shiva has four arms. In one hand he holds a dagger, preparing to strike. In the second hand he holds a fireball, preparing to throw it. The third hand is pointed down-ward in a gesture of denial.
Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Wherever the observer looks, he sees symbolic representations of death and destruction, from the all-consuming flames to the fanged serpents, from the threatening weapon to the pathetic figure beneath Shiva's feet.
But there is a fourth hand, and that hand is held upward, palm facing out, as a minister holds his hand when giving benediction. It is the universally recognizable gesture of peace.
Peace.
Don't worry about it.
It is all an illusion.