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So and well, now, I want to tell you about the first time I met Ishby.
It was early in November 2025. The monsters had only just started coming to me, and only in bits and pieces and abstract impressions. Ishby was the first to show himself to me whole. He was the first to talk to me, or at least, he was the first that I could hear.
I was lying in bed, watching the images flitter across the screen of the inside of my eyelids…some eyes, some swirling patterns, some tufts of ear hair, when all of a sudden Ishby appeared – complete and fully formed!
At this point it didn’t even occur to me that we could talk. I just took it for a gift and grabbed my pencil and sketch book.
Up until now, I had been sketching monsters totally free style, as i would approach any abstract project — let the lines come and flow, and then figure out what you can see later.
But now I had a full image in my head — a figure I wanted to reproduce as i had seen it in my mind’s eye. I have never been very good at that. I get all tied up by the thought that I have to produce something just right, by the thought that I will never be able to get it like I see it in my head.
And, sure enough, my first efforts were frustratingly terrible, didn’t look or feel at all like the creature I saw inside my eyelids. “Oh whatever!” I said. “I guess today is not the day and I am not the artist and this is not the creature, lets just go away and do something else”
And that’s when Ishby spoke to me. “No!!!” he said. “No nononono!!! I need to be born! I need to get through and you can get me there! Pleaseplease please!” he said.
I looked down at my sketchbook. I closed my eyes and looked at my back-of-the-eyelid screen. He was there. Fully formed, and now moving and talking.
“Yes” he said, “that drawing totally sucks, its not me at all. But just throw it away and start again, that’s OK! Nobody ever gets everything right the first time. Nobody. Ever. So, just go again!”
Ishby is cute, a wee bit vain, a lot of fun…and also very very wise. Nobody ever always gets it right. Nobody. Ever. Thanks Ishby, love you!!