The Paradox Beast

I have never actually seen the fabled Paradox beast or, to give it its proper name, a paradoxodile.

They’re very hard to see or hear, you see; only visible when no one is looking at them and only audible, so I’ve heard, when no-one is listening.

But I have little doubt that they are a total myth because, or at least according to legend, they can only ever exist when people believe they don’t.

“There’s no such thing as a paradox beast”, goes the old rhyme,

“and I don’t believe that in the least

for the only reason that I know

is because one of them told me so”.

There is one legend however, about a little girl, I think she was called Dora Pax, who wandered to a land that was both nearby and faraway and who, because she was blind saw the paradox beast and because she was deaf, heard it.

“What do you think of me, then?”, said the beast, proudly, “Aren’t I peculiar? My back is at my front and my front at my back”.

The girl looked at the beast, bewildered because it seemed perfectly the right way round, “No, it isn’t”.

“Oh yes it is but it might not appear so because I always walk backwards”, said the beast.

But then the Paradox beast raised up its hind legs menacingly and came towards her growling,

“Grrr! I am a paradox beast and I’m going to eat you and not”, it said.

“Eat me and not?”, asked the girl.

“Yes. I can’t just eat you. That wouldn’t be a paradox. I have to also not eat you”, said the beast.

The girl giggled, “That’s strange”.

“Oh but being eaten and not is much more horrible than just being eaten”, said the beast, growling and swishing its tail menacingly at her, “Now hold still while I leap upon you while, paradoxically, staying right where I am”.

Fortunately, the girl got so frightened and what she originally took to be some silly fantasy she started to believe was real which is as fatal as poison to a paradox beast and the moment that she believed in it, the creature just popped out of existence.

Or at least, I think it’s a legend; I may just have made it all up. I’m a compulsive liar you see, I never tell the truth and that’s no lie.