At a Place With and Before

"Why have I been punished with a single leg, and how am I to defend myself and remain standing without other appendages? I, one second…"

"I can only leave my hair on the ground for a moment lest it burst into flames."

"I admit that initially I held myself in high regard. My long hair draped me in the guise of an artifact of beauty, of the immortals’ yearning for art: the sincerest creation of any save them. My hair.."

"Is merely a hindrance to me now, cursed as I am by the incessant slathering of it. Here I stand, my mouth full of whatever lies around me, be it droppings, gravel or silt, or my mouth full of these wires…"

"For no matter where I go, my hair threatens to ignite. It is no more than a fuse waiting to reach me, to incinerate the stick that remains. I am but an upside question mark with a monstrous comma attached to me…"

"Pausing me. I live now in increments of communication or endless, gagged silence. What punishment is this? I do not reside in the Inferno, yet it follows me wherever I…"

And with that the beast hopped away. Too frustrated to continue beseeching me. I watched it go, alone and, perhaps worst of all, nameless. Not made to survive, yet living nonetheless. Its body appeared useless for the tasks given to it, as though evolution remained apathetic, or as though it had simply always lived, with no offspring and no mate.

I wonder still at its malformations: It had a mouth as men do, yet a face otherwise featureless, remarkable only in its slovenly nature. The leg, too, seemed more a resilient blade, lacking a knee and bending in the direction opposite me. The strange creator’s first attempts at forming life from clay.

If I am to believe the beast’s tale, the soiled and mangled trough of hair hanging from its head was once a far better sight to behold. And if that was the creator’s attempt to give recompense for an otherwise amateur dream, what led to its fall from grace? The immutable arbitrariness of the gods, a just punishment, or perhaps another accident left to its own devices?

I shall call it by the way it described itself: the Spanish use an upside-down question mark, though I know not its purpose. And that is fine, as I do not understand why this beast exists, nor why I am here (though perhaps it is merely to relate this tale to you). When I have found the name for this punctuation, I shall seek out the beast, calling it and hoping it understands. For without this task, what will become of me?