Congress of the Monsters Returns!
An Announcement and an Excerpt
In 2022, I self-published the first story in a planned series called The Congress of the Monsters. It was a satirical fantasy about a group of hideous creatures who convene in an underground cavern to debate ideas for killing and eating more humans. A product of pure imagination, with no real-world parallels.
That first story, “The Curse of the Wicked Weapon,” follows Phlurrgis the One-Eyed, the leader of one of the two main monster parties - the Brutikins - as he navigates a trap being set for him by Szovasza, the swamp monster at the head of the rival Vorashavite party. I created a dozen illustrations, printed a few hundred copies, and did some live readings here in Brooklyn. It was fun!
I’ve had the second issue in the can for a year and a half now, but I couldn’t commit to a plan for finalizing and sharing it with folks. There were a score of reasons for this, among them the oppressive uncertainty of the past few years, which had me wondering if this particular brand of metaphorical mockery still had any, er, teeth. In particular, I struggled so strenuously with the third story in the series that it made me question the project as a whole.
In the end, I had to take a deep breath and just let it go. These stories aren’t allegorical, and ideally any resonance they provide doesn’t depend on the vagaries of any specific political moment. They’re ultimately comedies about how hard it is to work together with other people, especially when those people are literally monsters. Who can’t relate?
So I’m thrilled to say that Congress of the Monsters #2: The Affair of the Pairs is, at long last, officially in print! If you’d like to read it, you have two opportunities:
First, I’ll be holding two upcoming live readings in Brooklyn, where I’ll be signing and drawing in free copies for attendees - I’d love to see you there! Here are the details:
Congress of the Monsters #2: A Reading
Wednesday, March 26 at 8pm
Sunday, March 30 at 3pm
CrawlSpace - 168 Stuyvesant Avenue, Brooklyn
Reservations: Simply reply to this email or send me a direct message via Substack.
Of course, if you’re busy or not in the area, I’ll also be happy to send you an inscribed copy of Congress of the Monsters #2 in the mail - and #1 too, if you don’t have it! Same instructions as above: Just send me a direct message by replying to this email or messaging me via the Substack app. Sending me a couple bucks via Venmo (@jeff-lewonczyk) to defray shipping costs is lovely but not expected.
To whet your appetites, here is the opening of Congress of the Monsters #2: The Affair of the Pairs, which this time puts the spotlight on Phlurrgis’s rival, Szovasza…
Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
When Szovasza was especially displeased, she temporarily abdicated her verbal facility in favor of a soft, steady hiss.
“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
This was the sound she used back in her home swamp to confuse, distract, and eventually terrorize her human prey. One wrong step into the watery muck, and she could much more easily overpower them.
“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
The sound was subtle, almost inconspicuous at first, but grew louder and more insistent over time. It was much more effective, she had learned, to sow panic slowly than provoke it in a single burst. When forced to make dozens of small decisions without a clear understanding of why, humans second-guessed themselves to death.
“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
It was a tactic that her fellow monsters were too stupid to recognize when they themselves were its object—monsters such as the squat, porcine beast presently standing before her.
“When humans run away, they run here,” it said, pointing a discarded femur at a crude diagram painted in blood on the cave wall. “Into net. Humans trapped. We capture humans. Humans ours. We win!”
The assembled group, splayed and stacked throughout the underground chamber, clattered their approval and indifference. The only exception was Szovasza.
“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
“Good plan, yes?”
“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
“Yes?
“Ssssssssssssssssssssssss…”
“... yes…?”
“Sssssssssso what you’re ssssssssaying issss that we chassssse the humansssss... into an oversssssize net.”
“Yah!”
Rippling with repressed fury, Szovasza rose to confront the beast, a recently arrived delegate to the Congress who had not yet learned that the opportunity to flee her wrath had to be seized swiftly and without looking back.
“Ssssstupid! Assssssinine! How isss thissss plan dissstinct from chassssing humansss into a cave, or chasssing humansss into a ssswamp, or chasssing humansss into the sssea? Thisss isss no way to outsssmart our dessspicable enemiesss, the Brutikinssss and their odioussss bossss Phlurrgisss. It isss the sssame sssscheme you idiotssss alwayssss ssserve me - sssilly, sshortssssighted and senssselessssss!”
Szovasza cast a quick glance at a pile of rocks in the corner. The mound—in actuality a mountain monster named Muddermong—cracked itself into action, grabbing the pig beast and hurling it into a nearby crevasse. As its fading howl gave way to a wet thump, she sat back down.
“You are all disssmissssed.”
The assembled creatures lurched out of the chamber, their nervous dread cut with the smug satisfaction that they weren’t among the mangled victims whose bodies littered the floor of the pit. They were all Vorashavites—a group of monsters ostensibly dedicated to developing strategies for cultivating human prey en masse—and Szovasza, their leader, watched them leave with undisguised disgust, maintaining a steady hiss to send them on their way.
Alone at last, she allowed her fierce expression to dissolve into something resembling despair. She had come too far, worked too hard, to continue presiding over such abysmal failure. Despite her faction’s stated goal of establishing a viable human breeding program before the end of the present century, all of her manifold plans amounted to nothing more than stick figures and groaning stomachs. Her entire career lagged several leagues behind her ambitions.
Not that she expected it to be easy. Ever since she first gazed out through the translucent membrane of her birth sac, registering the hundreds of other eggs piled up in the mud around her, she had understood survival would be a struggle. As her siblings chewed their way out to writhe and thrash in the muck, she worried that her time would never come, that she’d remain trapped in her soft shell for the entirety of her brief consciousness, doomed to be food rather than eater. As her kin swam past, flashing their burgeoning fangs while hers were still barely nubs, the unfairness filled her with such rage that she pounded mercilessly against her sac until the wall gave way through sheer effort. She ate no fewer than a dozen of her brothers and sisters that first day, learning quickly how much she loved their taste.
A growing sense of unease brought Szovasza back to the present moment. Her warts trembled in alarm—something was amiss in her chamber, but she couldn’t quite understand what.
“Excuse me...” a low, wispy voice pleaded—which only added to her suspicion, as that was a very unmonsterly thing to say.
Szovasza’s glance bounced off every wall of the room. “Where are you?” she demanded. “Reveal yourssself!”
“I’m right in front of you,” the voice continued, despite all evidence to the contrary. Szovasza stared, and then crossed her eyes, but still saw nothing.
What happens next? Read on (or be read to on?) to find out! Hope to see you at CrawlSpace in a few weeks - otherwise, let me know if you’d like to receive some monster mail!