The Monster who was Already Here
Story and pictures by Gerald Grow
Copyright © 2003
Note: This booklet was written and illustrated around 1974,, while I was involved as a citizen in transportation issues in Tallahassee, Florida, shortly after the energy crisis of 1973.
It is published here for the first time almost 30 years later (March 2003), without changes or apologies — dial telephones and all.
This material is copyrighted, but it may be read and linked to without further permission. Do not reprint text or pictures without written permission.
Link to it here.
The Monster who was Already Here
One day a famous scientist made a terrifying discovery.
The same day, a famous senator made a terrifying discovery.
The same day, a famous editor made a terrifying discovery.
They called each other up.
One said, “Monsters!:
One said, “Demons!:
One said, “Beasts!”
They all said, “The Monster is here! The Monster is Here! All our lives we have prepared to defend against monsters. But now, suddenly, we have found out that the Monster is already here — and he’s been here for years!
“And what’s worse, he isn’t like any monster we expected.
“Nobody knows what the monster is.
Nobody even knows enough to see him.”
“It sounds like a job,” they said, “for The World’s Greatest Detective.”
So they called in The World’s Greatest Detective and began to tell him what they knew about the monster.
As they did, the World’s Greatest Detective made mental pictures of what he heard.
They said, “The Monster consumes natural resources,” and this is what the World’s Greatest Detective saw in his mind:
They said, “The Monster destroys air!”
And the World’s Greatest Detective saw this in his mind:
They said, “The Monster eats land, leaving a long, hard, horrible track behind him!”
The World’s Greatest Detective imagined it like this:
They said, “All these Monster tracks connect up into a gigantic web stretched all over the country.”
And he imagined this:
They said, “The Monster eats money!”
And he imagined this:
They said, “The Monster makes a small number of people temporarily very wealthy.”
And the detective imagined it like this:
They said, “There are thousand and thousands of shrines built to honor the monster, all over the country, on street corners in every city and town.”
The World’s Greatest Detective saw it this way in his mind:
They said, “Almost every house is built with a den for the monster — sometimes as many as three dens!”
And he imagined it this way:
They said, “Cities are no longer built around the needs of people, but around the needs of the Monster.”
And the World’s Greatest Detective saw it like this in his mind:
They said, “People spend time every week, or even every day, feeding and grooming the monsters.”
And he imagined it this way:
They said, “The Monster demands fifty thousand human sacrifices each year!”
And he saw this picture in his mind:
They said, “The Monster has disguised himself by pretending to be a harmless servant, and he has made people dependent upon him, day in and day out.”
And this is what the World’s Greatest Detective saw:
“What can the monster be?” they asked. “We don’t know, and we can’t find out. PLEASE HELP US!”
“SILENCE!” the World’s Greatest Detective said. “Let me think.”
The World’s Greatest Detective began to think. As he did, he turned over the images in his mind and began to mix, combine, and extend them, to see if they added up to anything.
He thought and thought and came up with this image:
He thought some more, till his mind came up with this image:
He thought again and turned the pictures over in his mind till he got this one:
And he turned things over some more, till this image appeared:
Each time he came up with an image, he held it for a moment in his imagination and studied it, to see if he could figure out what The Monster was.
He continued to think through his images and got another one:
Suddenly, he saw it!
Everything came clear.
He stopped and said, “I have it!”
“The monster is none other than THE AUTOMOBILE!”
They were astonished. They were terrified. They said, “Oh, yes… you mean…Oh, no!…”
They said, “Of course! Why didn’t we see that before! That means, that means…
“We’re caught! We’re lost! It’s everywhere! It has taken over! We’re trapped!
“HHHHHHHHHHHEEEEELLLLLP!”
“Silence!” the World’s Greatest Detective snapped. “Listen.
“Nothing in itself is bad, but becomes bad by the way it is used.
“A knife can be used to cut bread,
“… or to kill a man.”
“A friendly dog can be turned into a monster by the way he is used.”
“A loving human being can be turned into a monster by the way he is used.”
“The automobile did not start out as a monster; we made it that way by the way we used it.
“And just as we made it, we can unmake it too.”
“HOW” they said. “Tell us! What can we do?”
The World’s Greatest Detective said, ‘That is for you to solve. After all, I am only the World’s Greatest Detective.
“But why don’t you think about it right now, and tell each other what you are thinking?”
The Senator started. He said, “Well, ah…OK…Let’s see… In my mind’s eye, I see people riding together.
“Not like that, though.”
“More like this, in cars.
“But that’s still not right.
“Maybe…Ah! in buses and trains!”
The Editor said, “Well, in my mind, I imagine something traveling underground
“Yes, I see people traveling underground…
“How? … Of course!
In subways:
The Scientist thought a while and said, “I imagine people using the telephone somehow for transportation.”
“Yes, they could phone each other to arrange car-pools.”
“Right!” The Senator added. “And they could phone for new ways of transportation, like Dial-A-Bus, that picks people up at their doorsteps.
“Yes,” the Scientist said. “I imagine people using the telephone to replace driving. I see them making calls first, instead of driving around.”
The Senator thought a while and said, “I somehow see people living closer to where they work.”
“Yes, I can imagine cities redesigned, so that would be possible.”
The Scientist said, “I imagine cities where people could walk safely to most of the places they need to go.”
“Yes,” the Editor said, “and I see lots of people riding bicycles along bike paths.”
The Scientist said, “In everything we say, I see a basic change in the relationship between people …
…and automobiles.
The World’s Greatest Detective spoke up. “I see only one Big Problem,” he said.
“We can change our factories, we can change our roads, we can change our laws.
“But the real problem will come in trying to change the way people think.
“There are no hammers or pliers or weapons to change people’s minds. That is the biggest job you must undertake.”
The Scientist, the Senator, and the Editor sat silently thinking about this.
As they did, the World’s Greatest Detective slipped quietly out the door and disappeared down the street.
They suddenly looked up and missed him.
“Oh, no!” they said. “Oh, dear! My goodness! We were hoping he would stay and solve the problem for us.”
“But,” they said, “he’s gone.”
“I guess that means everybody will have to help.”
Gerald Grow’s Home Page