I fucking hate the Sasquatch. I fucking hate giant anacondas, and I fucking hate yetis and chupacabras and bastard Nessie and Champ and lizard-men and fucking man-eating trees. They can all sod off. These creatures come under the term cryptid, that is: creatures not yet known to science, or ones that are thought extinct. I’ve been terrified of them since I was a child, and have barely slept since. They lurk outside in the bushes, and out on the landing. Then they creep into my mind and won’t leave until daylight. That makes me sound mad, which I’m not; that’s been scientifically proven (unlike yetis).
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| 'Do I exist? |
It’s hard to know when the fear all started, but I vividly remember being at a friend’s house, about eight years old, and my mate brought out this book. It was called something like World’s Greatest Mysteries or The Unexplained or similar. It was chock full of all the weirdest and craziest information on cryptids and odd stuff in general. It was full of all these scary grainy black and white photos of blurry figures and big footprints with metre sticks next to them, and ‘artists’ reconstructions’.
Well that was it. After seeing that bloody book, I’ve never gone into a dark cupboard, or cellar, or forest since. I had a childhood of fear, all due to the thought of cryptids out there, waiting to get me. As I’ve often said to folk, just because I’m paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to eat me. They're probably not, but I'm keeping an eye out just in case: mostly by turning round quickly on the street and randomly alternating the use of shops for my messages.
The last straw was when I had to watch my gran’s funeral with binoculars from a McDonald’s across the road from the graveyard. My folks were livid. As I sipped my milkshake, watching the casket get lowered down, I realised that the fear of cryptids had ruined my life.
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| What's this sod up to? |
Well, to hell with it, I thought. I’m going to do something about it. So, I have chosen to make it my life’s work to track down these cryptids; to track them down and expose them to the world, to make them stand in the cold light of day and subject them to the full glare of the media spotlight.
I also want to give them a kick-in. So I will travel to the ends of the earth, tread where mortal man has rarely dared to tread, go into those dark cupboards in search of that which goes bump in the night. I will seek out and batter the following: monsters, gnomes, vampires, dinosaurs, werewolves, giant spiders, monkey-men, mermaids and everything in between and nearby. But not aliens, I’m not mental.
There are thousands of people who believe in the existence of cryptids, thousands, who are dismissed as fantasists, attention seekers, or just unhinged. Fact is, I’ve never seen a kangaroo, but I’m led to believe they exist. Well, I’ve never seen a cryptid, but I believe in them. Same thing. I want to unveil these creatures to the world as the sneaky, cowardly little sods I believe them to be. Many folk seek the yeti, but I seek to show it up by getting it in a headlock and rubbing its head a bit, so it’s sore; hence ‘YetiSmack’.
Then, no child will suffer the fear and terror that I, and many like me, have suffered. Hang on, I did see a kangaroo in a safari park once, but you get the idea. Well, come to think of it, it was far away, so may have been a wallaby. In that case my original statement stands.
Further background to the quest can be found here...
Further background to the quest can be found here...
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| Kangaroo or close-up wallaby? |
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| Wallaby or far away kangaroo? |
