Monsters

When we're children, monsters are used to frighten us. We delight in Halloween and scary movies that push our adrenals and give us thrills in the moment. Monsters, we're told, look and act like this. Most have become stereotypes of themselves.

While I was writing yesterday, I wrote a scene with monsters in it. Specifically, three characters who had been made into monsters. While they weren't model citizens before, they had been mutilated by someone they cared for and turned into dying shadows of who they were.

It bothered me a great deal.

I started this scene with a specific dialogue and outcome in mind. Instead, I've found myself pursuing an entirely new possibility for them. 

I took to Snapchat and TikTok to ask the question, paraphrased:  If you came across a damaged monster, would you seek to try and help it, or destroy it?  If it were the last or second or third last of its species? Would you consider it a mercy killing?

Monsters, to many of us, aren't vampires or werewolves, they are the bullies in school. They are the family who acts like anything but. They are the management in your job who lets you suffer slowly because they don't give a damn. These are the real monsters. They erode you with no care whatsoever. 

It's a horrible day when you realize the Monster Matinee is simply a couple hours of made-up mayhem with fake screams, blood, and actors.

It's a worse day when you see the monsters in your life. 

While I've tried to let my sleeping monsters lie, I find that I'm more likely to show mercy to others because the other option is too deep a cut to bear, even in my writing.

Always writing*

...and pondering monsters real and imagined...