a something
Dec. 31st, 2007 03:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
levity"You think our monsters aren't real?" She laughed, and her dark hair rippled in an invisible wind. "They are. Let me tell you that. They're dressed in nice little packages, and sometimes they're even labeled for you. Sure, they won't grab your ankle from under the bed or suck out your blood once midnight strikes. But they're there, and uglier- and realer- than they're made out to be."
She strode to the bare windows and opened them, and the night winds were both cutting and a reassurance that I was awake. She said, more to herself than to me, "What would I give to keep our monsters of old."
My voice was hoarse, and the few self-preservation instincts I had screamed at me to shut up. "Why?"
She shrugged. "Well, if they were, if you're tortured you're tortured and if you're dead you're dead. None of this letting you think they've gone for good and stabbing you in the back when you least expect it. None of this being almost, almost happy, but not quite, because they're just waiting to break out if you let your guard down. You'd be destroyed from the outside, not from the inside. The worst is being consumed, while knowing it all the while. Knowing that one day you'll be little more than an empty shell just waiting for a heart attack or a careless truck driver to finish the job started so long ago, and not being able to do anything about it. That's the worst."
Sometimes believing in all the monsters of childhood had its advantages.
She strode to the bare windows and opened them, and the night winds were both cutting and a reassurance that I was awake. She said, more to herself than to me, "What would I give to keep our monsters of old."
My voice was hoarse, and the few self-preservation instincts I had screamed at me to shut up. "Why?"
She shrugged. "Well, if they were, if you're tortured you're tortured and if you're dead you're dead. None of this letting you think they've gone for good and stabbing you in the back when you least expect it. None of this being almost, almost happy, but not quite, because they're just waiting to break out if you let your guard down. You'd be destroyed from the outside, not from the inside. The worst is being consumed, while knowing it all the while. Knowing that one day you'll be little more than an empty shell just waiting for a heart attack or a careless truck driver to finish the job started so long ago, and not being able to do anything about it. That's the worst."
Sometimes believing in all the monsters of childhood had its advantages.
