Monday, April 29, 2013

Real and unreal terrors


Song of the day: Hallelujah I love her so, with Hugh Laurie


So, not a post on Marvellous People Monday, mostly because I, in my addled state of dealing with finals coming up and also finishing the first draft of my novel for CampNaNo, could not think of a badass of history or the present that had already been lauded for their fantasticness by the masses already. But I am sure I will think of something later, when I'm just about to fall asleep after grueling hours of writing and schoolwork.

Also since there probably isn't anyone reading this I can do whatever the hell I want and nobody will complain.

So I have this weird thing I do whenever I'm walking home at night after dark. I basically start imagining every horrific monster I ever saw in any media ever, and just how badly they would mess me up if I came across them.

 These buggers alone can render me an insomniac for hours at a stretch

I even had a this crazy idea about lampposts coming into life and sort of stretching and turning out to be these giant stick insects that are dormant for the day and come out at night to eat unsuspecting passersby.

What is in this tea?

But I don't imagine these things for the reasons you might expect, to whit scare myself out of my pants because it's fun or because my imagination gets overactive in the eerie surroundings. I do it because it's oddly sort of comforting. Because I know they're just in my head and they aren't really going to turn up, and therefore I preoccupy myself with scary but harmless stuff so that I don't think about the equally scary but actually harmful stuff that can happen to a person walking alone outside at night.

I think it really says something about either the human psyche or the fear campaigns in media (or both) that despite people virtually NEVER getting assaulted in any way whatsoever where I live (well, except if they're on the main street getting outrageously swazzled), that most people are still terrified to go outside after dark. You know, they still do it and everything, but meanwhile they are trying not to have an early heart attack and keel over. Not so much of fear for the darkness itself, but for the things hiding in it.

Or some such stuff. It might just be me secretly having fun attempting to scare myself. I mean, if you can scare yourself with your own stories, you might have an easier time scaring other people. Which is, you know, kinda important when the story you're trying to write is at least partially horror.

I really should write down that thing about the stick insects...

No comments:

Post a Comment