It Wears Coats

A man condemns his own creation as monstrous, yet neglects to confront the depravity of his own nature. He cloaks his savagery in virtue, his sins in righteousness, and mistakes his capacity for remorse as proof of innocence. How curious that a being so acquainted with evil should tremble at the sight of its own reflection.

It wasn’t as if the thing was born that way. In fact, its origins were no different from any other child's: expelled from its mother's womb, swaddled tightly in an ivory sheet, and gently cooed at by passersby on the subway. A baby akin to any other.

Everyone adores a baby until that baby grows and proves itself unlike everyone else. Its complexion was too dark, its laughter too loud, and its manner of walking too eccentric. An abomination, some whispered, though rarely quietly enough to spare the small boy from hearing.

He first tasted this treatment on the grade-school playground. Four boys ran alongside him, grappling with each other onto the soft soil. The sound of the boys' laughter sent a flash of excitement through him.

“Can I play too?” he asked.

The boys stopped, snickering, their gazes raking over him.

“I guess so…” one said, putting his hands innocently behind him. “But you have to play the monster.”

He agreed immediately, but the fun only lasted so long before one of the children threw himself to the ground and wailed. He had reached out to help, but the other boys pushed him away. Their voices rose in accusation, branding him a freak, insisting he should have never been allowed among them.

A nearby teacher offered him a sympathetic smile but still suggested he play alone. Most of his childhood went this way: isolated or role-playing a beast for others' entertainment, learning early that he did not belong.

He did not understand what made him different. He possessed two arms, two legs, and a heart that beat just as theirs did. He laughed when something was amusing and cried when he was hurt. Yet there seemed to be some quality of being human that everyone else possessed that he lacked, an unspoken requirement he had somehow failed to satisfy.

The adults were hardly better, though most had the decency to disguise their oppression as concern. A baker would offer him treats but never let him stand too close. Parents smiled at him but hid their children behind them when he passed. Even those who considered themselves kind seemed incapable of perceiving him without pity, as though his very existence was some horrific misfortune.

His mother, too, was not immune. Once she pressed her lips to his brow and drew the blankets close around him. But as the town’s malice festered, her affection shriveled. She became ashamed of him, her corrections growing sharper, her patience thinning with every perceived flaw.

“What sin could warrant being cursed with a child like you?” she spat one day. He had laughed too loudly, too abnormally, and it had attracted unwanted attention. She didn’t like unwanted attention.

After that, he learned the art of vanishing, shrinking himself to be as unobtrusive as possible. He supposed a woman could endure only so much ridicule on behalf of her child before she began to resent the child himself. As he grew older, their words grew nastier, and he began to wonder whether they knew a secret that he did not.

Men seldom contemplate the consequences of their words. Words penetrate. They burrow into the folds of flesh and mesh themselves deep within the marrow, poisoning the blood that courses toward the heart. Perhaps the most fragile part of being human is that one’s humanity extends only as far as one’s capacity to believe in it.

By the time the boy had grown into a man, he no longer believed himself human.

At sixteen, his mother had thrown him out.

“An unholy boy like you will never amount to anything good; I’ve had enough.”

He pleaded, promising to be quieter, to walk properly, to become whatever she desired him to be. But the door closed nonetheless, and he stood deserted on the porch with a suitcase and nowhere to go.

For years, he wandered the local area, begging for food, shelter, and any scraps of mercy people would spare. Many remembered him from adolescence, although few acknowledged it. To most, he was an unpleasant brute who loitered below bridges and slept in alleyways. They labeled him a vagrant, a nuisance, a danger to decent folk; this eroded his sense of self, leaving only a persistent awareness of his alienation. Eventually he stopped asking for help.

Then, one evening, he wandered past the bakery and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass. A grotesque creature stared back. His face had grown gaunt, his cheeks hanging sickly and loose, his limbs so unnaturally long that they hardly seemed to belong to a man. He searched for some remnant of the child his mother had cradled, but found nothing.

He fled into the sewers, and there he began his peculiar practice. He began to wear coats.

People coats.

Coats that expressed a more human look. Coats that resembled Ron, who lived above the sewers, or Amy, the pleasant lady who worked at the bakery.

The first coat came about by accident. A man had cornered the thing underneath a bridge, mistaking its unusual appearance for a threat to his safety. The man held out his arm.

“Now just stay back.”

But it went forward anyway. It tried to explain that it wasn't dangerous, but the man refused to listen. There had been shouting, a struggle, and afterward, a body lying motionless beside the water. It had not intended to kill him, or so it told itself.

It stroked the man's face with a trembling hand; the skin slid loosely beneath its fingers, and it discovered so much room inside. A wicked possibility presented itself, and it burrowed into the tight husk, donning his appearance like a garment. Then Amy came, and she was no accident.

People liked it when it wore Amy. They smiled at it in the corridors, asked about its day, and spoke with fondness. Some even embraced it, holding it close without the slightest hesitation. Because Amy was human, Amy was beautiful. Amy belonged.

And for a short while, so did the thing.

But all moments of grace must decay, and the coats inevitably rotted. Sickly tendons would burst and bulge through the seams, and from the ruined coats the gaunt creature would emerge, its many-jointed mouth crackling as it adjusted to its true design. Its limbs would stretch and contort, free from the foreign proportions that had confined them, and the spoiled carcasses would be left to fall away in damp, putrid folds.

It would drag the ruined coats through the sewage to a dark, musty corner, and pull the remains tightly to its chest. Even monsters can mourn, and mourn the thing did. Sobbing when it held the person it had worn, screeches of anguish would echo through the chambers below the city. Sometimes it apologized to the hollow skins, promising it never wished them harm.

It simply wanted to be loved. Was that truly such a ghastly desire? People killed for greed, for pleasure, for reasons far less noble than the simple longing to belong. Surely the thing shouldn’t be condemned for wanting what everyone else had been freely given.

It would cradle the remains for weeks until they inevitably turned to sludge and seeped through its bony fingers. Then the search for a replacement would begin. By then, its grief would have eased into something more tolerable, and the memory of the lives taken became easier to dismiss.

After all, the thing had suffered plenty.

And so, that night, it readied itself to seek a fresh coat of flesh.

Wiry arms rose from the manhole’s confines and stretched onto the street, illuminated by festive string lights that adorned the posts along the pavement— the kind that lit the district even at the blackest hour. It could almost hear the ghost of laughter drifting between the brick shops.

If one didn't know better, if they happened to miss the tattered pieces of caution tape floating along the alleyways, they’d certainly think the headlines were a lie. Surely, such a charming town, nestled between the mountains, could not be concealing its own mountain. One compiled from dozens of missing-person reports and the unanswered pleas of grieving families.

Spindly strands of hair sprouted aimlessly from its scalp, each one dampened by the heavy fog that had settled across the area. As the mist thickened and enveloped the neighborhood, it veiled the creature’s movements, allowing it to glide unnoticed alongside the brick buildings and shadowed storefronts.

It halted before a blue house, familiar yet nameless in its memory.

Its bulging eyes peered through the window, following a middle-aged woman moving about the kitchen. A young man sat upon the island to the right, laughing at something she said. The woman reached for him, straightened his shirt collar, and tenderly combed the strands from his forehead.

A mother and her son.

The pair was familiar, but years in dark, damp depravity had eaten away the memory. Yet a single moment slipped past the shadows. A time when it was merely a child, before it had slunk into gutters and learned to hide within the husks of others. A time of syrupy pancakes and breakfast with its mother. Before she had cast it aside.

After all, monsters don't have mothers.

"Momma," it wheezed. Its throat stung as though it had swallowed razor blades. Palms pawed desperately at the glass, leaving greasy streaks upon the window. But the woman's gaze didn’t stray from the child who sat beside her, a human son, one she treasured.

The thing curled into itself upon the damp ground. It longed to wail, but its throat produced only a strained, pitiful whimper as splintered fingernails pierced its arm as if it were clay. Thick black fluid seeped onto the grass below. It recalled those hands, the ones that had once cradled its head, and wondered whether they might recognize the beast it had become.

There was nothing more certain, it thought, than a mother's affection for her child, nothing more consoling than the caress of the person who carried you into this world. Yet even that simple care had been denied to it, just as friendship, companionship, and every other human kindness had been denied.

So it coveted the boy in the kitchen, who laughed without being silenced, who occupied space without apologizing, whose mother adored him without shame. It coveted the ease with which he made friends without first having to convince them he deserved to exist.

Somewhere hidden behind the bitterness that accumulated over the seasons, it knew that the young man had done nothing wrong. He hadn't mocked it or driven it from the streets. He was simply fortunate enough to have been born someone whom others tolerated.

It watched the woman kiss his forehead, and any remaining hesitation was overcome by longing.

At that moment, the thing decided upon the fabric for its newest guise.

It didn’t take long to gather the materials. The lights flickered out, and the thing slipped in.

The boy slept upstairs, one arm dangling over the edge of the mattress. A basketball lay beside the bed, and the walls were covered with images of smiling friends, school trophies, and memories of an unfamiliar life. For a second it stood statue-like, observing his peaceful expression.

A quick incision along the abdomen was sufficient for it to slither inside. It hadn't intended to cause the boy any suffering, nor had it wished for him to die. It was just so terribly lonely, and what choice had the world left it?

Jeremy, it later discovered, proved to be a very suitable coat.

It inspected the reflection. Clear complexion, broad shoulders, straight teeth. Everything that it wasn't. It raised its hands and turned them over, admiring the unblemished palms and neatly trimmed fingernails. It smiled briefly, and the handsome face in the mirror smiled back.

It stalked down the hall, guided by a bizarre sense of familiarity. The walls exhibited dozens of photographs. Jeremy at homecoming, on family vacations, celebrating birthdays, and cheering at basketball games—no photographs of the thing. Scarcely any evidence suggested another child had ever occupied these halls.

Because monsters don't belong in photographs.

It paused as it pushed open the final door. Its mother lay under the covers, eyes closed, peacefully asleep. How a woman could sleep so soundly, knowing she had thrown her own child away, was a wonder. Yet it supposed she was hardly different from the rest of them. Individuals were remarkably capable of forgetting their brutality if they believed themselves justified.

It curled beneath the covers alongside her, and its eyelids slipped closed. She stirred, then wrapped her arms around it and pulled it close. It could not recall the last time it had received such a kind embrace, if ever. Warmth emanated beneath the coat, yet it had never felt so much grief.

For several hours it lay awake, listening to her breathing and feeling the rise and fall of her chest against its own borrowed casing. Would she have held it this way had it been born differently? Would she have defended it from peers who mocked its appearance, adults who feared it, and townspeople who treated it as less than human? Perhaps she might have loved it.

Perhaps they all might have.

By the time morning blossomed, the thing had fully settled into the Jeremy suit. The tightness around the shoulders and abdomen had subsided, and it had grown accustomed to the unique proportions of its new body.

But its mother kept looking at it oddly.

At breakfast, it laughed at something she said, forgetting to restrain the awful, guttural sound that had frightened people since childhood. Her smile trembled. Later, when it reached across the table for her hand, she withdrew with an uncertain grimace.

"Jeremy, what’s wrong with you?"

It stared at her, bewildered.

It had worn the guise of strangers, mimicked their voices, and adapted their mannerisms well enough to fool neighbors and friends. People had welcomed it into homes, held it, and greeted it with kindness, even those who would have recoiled at a glimpse of its true form.

Still, its mother had begun to turn away before the mask had even begun to decay.

It tried to correct itself, to laugh more quietly, to walk with Jeremy's confidence, and keep strange hands folded where she missed their slight tremble. Yet the harder it tried, the more awkward it became. It was a familiar humiliation, one it had endured its entire life, when every attempt to behave like the other children only exacerbated its differences.

"Stop staring at me like that," she snapped.

Its gaze lowered. It remembered those words. It remembered them very well.

By evening, the Jeremy suit began to deteriorate fast.

Too fast.

The muscles around its shoulders tightened, its fingers lengthened, and something behind the young man's handsome features morphed. Maybe the skin had been poorly fitted, or it simply grew too desperate to hold its borrowed meat together.

Its mother watched from across the room, her face twisted in a revulsion it knew too well.

Even concealment had now proved itself insufficient.

It retreated to Jeremy's bedroom and stood before the mirror, watching the sickly sinew bulge through the surface. The lips began to split at the corners, exposing the grotesque tissue beneath. A quivering hand reached out and touched the glass.

Its mother's voice floated through the corridors for Jeremy.

The thing let its eyes fall shut. It imagined the boy under the covers, the photographs on the walls, and the awful stillness of the body whose life it mimicked. For a while, it mourned him, the same way it mourned the others. Such a handsome young man. What a terrible waste.

But Jeremy had been fortunate to experience sixteen years of warmth. Surely it deserved to experience a little of that happiness as well.

It had suffered enough.

Before it could escape quietly, the woman entered the room. She took one look at it, at the bulging flesh and splitting seams of what once had been her son, and let out a piercing scream. It reached out to her.

"Momma."

She stumbled backward, her expression contorted with horror, and understood it would never be held by her again.

It fled from the house and stumbled into the streets, where the evening crowds recoiled at the spectacle of its grotesque physique. Parents dropped their shopping bags, dragged their children away, and cried out in terror. It desperately tried to explain itself, but its distorted mouth only produced a horrible, crackling wail.

The same people who previously denied it food, shelter, and kindness now looked upon it with the horror they believed it deserved.

"Monster!"

"Monster!"

"Monster!"

It fled toward the sewers, clutching the remains of Jeremy's skin against its chest. It wept for the boy, for the mother who refused to love it, and for the humanity it had spent a lifetime trying to reclaim.

It wept for all the wretched acts it had been forced to do.

And in the darkness beneath the town, surrounded by the rotting remnants of coats it had once worn, it wondered whose coat it would wear next.

A creature condemns those who crafted it to be monstrous, yet neglects to confront the depravity of its own nature. It cloaks its savagery in suffering, its sins in longing, and mistakes its capacity for remorse as proof of innocence. How curious that man and monster, so intimately acquainted with evil, should each tremble at the sight of their own reflection.