You Had Evil Inside You, And You

It Was An Overcast Late November Morning, The Grass Splintered By Hoarfrost, And Winter Grinning Through The Gaps In The Clouds Like A Bad Clown Peering Through The Curtains Before The Show Begins.

There Are People Whose Eyes You Must Avoid, Whose Attention You Must Not Draw To Yourself. They Are Strange, Parasitic Creatures, Lost Souls Seeking To Stretch Across The Abyss And Make Fatal Contact With The Warm, Constant Flow Of Humanity. They Live In Pain, And Exist Only To Visit That Pain On Others. A Random Glance, The Momentary Lingering Of A Look, Is Enough To Give Them The Excuse That They Seek. Sometimes, It Is Better To Keep Your Eyes On The Gutter For The Fear That, By Looking Up, You Might Catch A Glimpse Of Them, Black Shapes Against The Sun, And Be Blinded Forever.

David's Mother Would Often Tell Him Stories Were Alive. They Weren't Alive In The Way People Were Alive,or Even Dogs Or Cats. People Were Alive Whether You Chose To Notice Them Or Not, While Dogs Tended To Make You Notice Them If They Decided That You Weren't Paying Enough Attention. Cats, Meanwhile, Were Very Good At Pretending People Didn't Exist At All When It Suited Them.

I'd Been Hurt, And In Response I Had Acted Violently, Destroying A Little Of Myself Each Time I Did So.

I Think The Act Of Reading Imbues The Reader With A Sensitivity Toward The Outside World That People Who Don't Read Can Sometimes Lack. I Know It Seems Like A Contradiction In Terms; After All Reading Is Such A Solitary, Internalizing Act That It Appears To Represent A Disengagement From Day-to-day Life. But Reading, And Particularly The Reading Of Fiction, Encourages Us To View The World In New And Challenging Ways...it Allows Us To Inhabit The Consciousness Of Another Which Is A Precursor To Empathy, And Empathy Is, For Me, One Of The Marks Of A Decent Human Being.