All I need to know, I learned from Godzilla.
When I was a little boy I wanted to be Godzilla when I grew up. I’d cut out back spines from cardboard, build cities out of boxes and proceed to stomp the living fuck out of them while armies of frightened action figures “ran for their lives”.
My grandparents always said I was “A little odd.” I’d play games like “Black Plague” in which all my toys would slowly die in agony from some mystery plague that included vomiting blood, boils, and sometimes dissolving from the inside out. Only my favorites would be immune, surviving to bury the others in mass graves and start rebuilding the world. Cannibalism, sex, and rising from the dead were all common themes in my childhood games. It was no wonder my Jehova’s witness baby sitter became steadily more afraid of me as I got older and more outspoken about my “deviant” thoughts. The irony being that it was her son, my friend whom she eventually banned from seeing me, who ended up destroying his brain by huffing gasoline. The last time I saw her, she apologized and said she had “judged me too harshly” and that she was sure I “could have saved him.” Moments like those, they make life worth living.
Now, I’m all grown up. I still want to be Godzilla, though perhaps now in a less literal sense. I’d still like nothing more than to upset the balance of people’s lives. To make them stop and look around, and realize how fucked up shit around them is, and how they bring it on themselves. Perhaps a little running and screaming for good measure. Just to fulfil a childhood fantasy.
No matter how jaded and bitter I become. Inside I’m still that little boy stomping on carboard skyscraper and wanting to change the world. Whenever I hear that familiar roar….I can’t help but start smiling.
