The Monkeys paw

Year: 2008

Status: SOLD; commission for actor Reece Shearsmith

“The severed hand of a lesser ape; able to grant wishes yet at a great price – its secrets teased from decayed flesh – but at what cost?”

It was the month of June, a warm evening, when Thomas Malley approached my door. Unbeknownst to me, wrapped in a hankerchief and tucked carefully within his jacket pocket, was an abberation that both terrified and mystified Mr. Malley, and as i cordially invited him into my house on Blanford street, he patted the item as if to assure him that it was indeed there.

Mr. Malley stood in the doorway to my study, muttering to himself about various things, before i ushered him into a chair, passed him a glass of sherry and attempted to calm him. He finally acquiesced, smiling pitifully.
He took the specimen out of his pocket, and placed it – still wrapped – on my bureau.
I nodded towards it, and unravelled the hanky.
Before me was what appeared to be the preserved hand of a small ape, or indeed a large monkey. I am in no way associated with natural history, but knew a little of the great apes. I smiled assuredly to Thomas, that it was indeed a good specimen. But this didn’t seem to be the information he required.
I finally had enough of his strange disposition and as a father speaks to his son, demanded Thomas spit out whatever he wanted to say, or have another sherry. He took another sherry in any case, and began his tale.

The day before, Thomas had visited an Estate sale at the Wotherby Auction house on Scotsdean avenue. He frequented sales and auctions as part of his job as a furniture collector and restorer, he was really quite good at his job.
Once inside he found a set of taxidermied birds that he most enjoyed and asked the steward if there were any more animal pieces in the sale. The steward said that there was no other taxidermy, besides an ugly item found in the study of the house.
He was lead to the item, the item that now lay on my desk.
The steward was glad to see it go, and let Thomas have it. She believed it wouldn’t gather any interest at auction, and with that Thomas left, to return later that day for the birds.

As he was about to leave the auction house, a tall man of Indian descent approached him, placing a large hand on his shoulder. He gave Thomas an odd foreboding glance and held up his other hand to silence Thomas. “This abomination will bring you nothing but sadness. The family who owned this monkey paw wished for an ocean voyage, a voyage that would never end. Their wish was granted.” With that he disappeared into the swelling crowd.

Thomas inquired as to why the sale was going ahead, and found out that the entire family had left for a holiday on the maiden voyage of the HMS Dynamic. It had hit a reef off the coast of Africa and had sunk, and with no heirs, their earthly belongings were to be sold and the proceedings donated to a charity.

Thomas had returned home, and placed the monkeys hand in a glass case, to be forgotten amongst his various oddities. But every night he had heard an almost inaudible creaking, a sound that would fade as he ventured down into his own study, yet before him the hand would sit, and clench its little fist, severed from a body and a brain – regardless, it seemed possessed.

Driven to fright, he had decided that i would be his course of action. I would distill some sense in him, apparently i was good at this. But unfortunately, my own desire for the truth took me down a different path.

The hand had moved for me. I had watched it every night, the sound of cracking leather reverberating through the house as it shook and jerked on my bureau. I wouldn’t touch it, through fear of unleashing whatever supernatural plague had taken out the owners before Thomas. But i did not fall prey to superstition entirely – i decided to research back into the owners of this terrible object, and found a lineage of sad death, missing persons and foul play. No one had suspected that the shriveled paw was to blame.

Its roots lay in India, owned by a fakir; a magician or wise man, capable of whimsical feats. He had brought the paw to England, where he spoke of taking the paw, as if to shake it in greeting, and make a wish. The paw would grasp your hand tightly, to the point of pain, and the wish would be granted. But there was a price, for you or someone unbenownst to you to pay.

I continued my research, peeling back decades – millenia of knowledge of items bestowed with extra earthly abilities, of deals made with demonic books, of stones that could tell the future and always rewarded in blood. What was it that spoke from within these inanimate objects?

I decided to experiment myself, to reanimate flesh – to seal my own ideology in a paw. I dissected the original monkey paw, i cut tendon and sinue and sewed it together, removing its ability to move. I probed it with wire and metal, with science and reason, and when this did not work, i turned to ancient philosophy, theosophy, the teachings of Buddha, of Hinduism. I carved lotus into wood and wrote incantations on paper, placed under the skin. I bestowed no curse and wishes on my reanimate flesh, and i cursed myself for this folly.

when my work was abandoned, the hand moved again. In my arrogance, i grasped that monkey paw and made my wish – to be rid of this cursed knowledge and the paw.

-

I have forgotten my parents names, i have forgotten my love and the house i live in. I have no memory of the person who brought this hand to me, besides what i wrote here. I know i began this tale to record why i now seem to be loosing all sense of reason. I asked for this paw to be gone from my memory, but it seems the price of this wish is quite, quite obvious..

what is this device i hold in my hand? what am i doing?..

Reece wanted this piece to be animated in some way, and for the process of activating the monkey paw to have some theatre about it. So we have a lever, which when charged spits sparks, whilst this occurs, a second lever is activated and an electro magnetic battery will begin to “rev up” – the paw has a subtle movement, but is creepy all the same. The specimens held within the case are a second smaller monkey hand, severed animated fingers, a lavish dissection case, amongst reams of documents pertaining to the knowledge of the original paw.