As a kid I never believed in ghosts. Monsters were a different story. Ghosts to me were ethereal and despite all the Halloween hype just did not scare me. Monsters, on the other hand, had me under the bed with the dog. They are more tangible to reality especially if they were from outer space where anything close to science or myth could be justified.
Now that I am older I have come to believe in ghosts but not in the sense of haunted mansions or dancing spirits in graveyards at night. Ghosts are ambiguous and unexplained but usually there is an attempt to rationalize or explain what appears to be a physical appearance. Too often we find ourselves like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of OZ with his eyes closed babbling his mantra: Oh, I do believe in spooks.
Monsters on the other hand have a more realistic aspect. Where a ghost may materialize through a wall a monster can take the wall down. Monsters have a mission. Godzilla came to destroy Tokyo. Invaders from Mars were attempting to conquer and enslave Earth. The Predator was dropping in from deep space for his annual hunting trip to stalk humans in the jungle. This has more fear to it then something that just goes bump in the night.
History has its monsters. Some have been immortalized in fiction like Count Dracula, Vlad the Impaler. Others are immortalized just for their ferocity and barbarity like Attila the Hun. And monsters are not restricted to certain eras of time. We have had our modern-day monsters like Hitler and his Nazis with their death camps and Pol Pot in Cambodia with his killing fields. Who knows, Kim Jong Un could become one.
Some historical monsters never become ghosts. They have made the transformation from human straight to monster. Their place in history is secured much the way Benedict Arnold’s name is synonymous to the word traitor. It does not matter what heroic deeds Arnold did during the Revolutionary War, his selling out to the British is what he is remembered for. And in Arnold’s defense most people could not tell you what he actually did. Monsters cannot escape their moniker.
In most cases it does not take long to identify monsters. This is nothing new. It did not take Romans long to begin removing images of Nero and the pulling down of his Golden Palace after he was determined to be an enemy of the public. It could be argued that Nero knew the Praetorian Guard was coming for him and decided to kill himself and save them the trouble.
American colonists in New York pulled down a statute of King George III and turned his majesty into bullets to be fired at Red Coats. Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution destroyed statutes of Alexander the III, changed the name of St. Petersburg and went so far as to kill Czar Nicholas III and his entire family. Other unloved potentates managed to see the pitchforks and torches in the distance and got out of town a few steps ahead of the mob.
But those were obvious monsters. Historical ghosts have managed to move through eddies of time, appearing and then fading back into the mists. It is during these historical séances that ghosts can be immortalized in granite; their earthly forms captured for eternity.
The problem with these marble monuments and men is that a change in the historical perspective can easily transform a ghost into a monster. A shift in the accepted historical narative can radically change the continuum. This can cause “a recalculating” on the direction history takes in the present. An obvious result is the pulling down of these idolized statutes from their plinths and turning them into monsters.
Ghosts venerated in their time are subjected to historical decay. Their deeds are turned into history and legend and then materialize as bronze men on raised granite-marble pedestals . Exposed to the elements the bronze will oxidize and change color. Without proper care the statute will corrode away. But what happens when the people’s perspectives about these marble men disintegrate? Ghostly beliefs of the past become perceived monstrous deeds of the present.
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