“Senator Mitch McConnell said on Monday that the ‘loony lies and conspiracy theories’ embraced by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene amounted to a ‘cancer’ on the Republican Party, issuing what in effect was a scathing rebuke to the freshman House Republican from Georgia.” — New York Times, 2/1/21

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This has gotten out of control. When I first created The Creature, a horrid-looking half-human and half-machine with a tendency to strangle people it dislikes, I had no idea things would end badly. But now I see the error of my ways. I, Dr. Frankenstein, am hereby releasing this statement condemning the actions of the monster I created and did nothing to stop.

Let’s start from the beginning. You see, when I first built The Creature, I was young and naïve to the danger that could result from creating a bloodthirsty monster. But four years later, I have matured and come to believe that I should acknowledge that perhaps the actions of The Creature may have been harmful, and possibly even fatal to certain parties.

Don’t get it twisted; I’m not doing anything outrageous here, like proposing we go hunt down The Creature ourselves or punish it in any fashion. No sir, I am far too much a coward to take any direct action. But I will say that what The Creature has done to tarnish my reputation and also the murder part is certainly not polite.

When I realized The Creature had murdered my brother William, I could have tried to clear the name of Justine Moritz, the woman wrongly accused of his murder. Was it wrong of me to leave her to be hung and instead flee into the mountains? Maybe. But you know what they say, “There’s no reasoning with the 7-foot metallic man-robot you assembled with your bare hands in your college dorm.”

So you see, I really had no choice but to “go with the flow,” as the kids say. The important thing is that I am finally speaking up after the presumed death of the original Creature, and the untimely rise of all the Little Creatures it spawned.

As for all the other murders, I don’t know what you want me to say. I condemned them, isn’t that enough? Maybe if I had studied real science and not alchemy, I would have been smart enough to invent a time machine, but alas. And even if I had, I probably wouldn’t go back and change anything. You only get one life, and even if you spend that life building and then defending and cleaning up after the messes of the monster that follows you around the world, slowly picking off your family until there is no one left, then so be it.

I condemn the actions of The Creature. I realize the horrendous name and reputation The Creature has left me with, whose legacy continues to proliferate. It’s not a good look. A “cancer,” if you will. Hey, that’s a good one.

But we had fun times too. Like that time he was going to rip my heart out of my chest and eat it while I watched, but then he didn’t.

To those The Creature irreversibly scarred and in some cases killed, let’s just forgive and forget. Break some bread, extend an olive branch, lock the doors and check the windows to make sure The Creature hasn’t returned and is standing right outside brandishing the sword I may have mistakenly made for it, and then move on.

Oh, and also, it was not my intent for The Creature to be so blatantly anti-Semitic. My bad on that one.