midnight writing

Do not be afraid of that dark creature
that lurks in the shadows:
In the eye-corners: in the night.

It is me.

It is you.

I distinctly remember, when I was a little boy, in a bookshop, seeing the cover of a science fiction or fantasy book that enthralled me. There was a black, sinewy creature poised over a prone, naked boy, about to devour him. I wasn't exactly horrified. I was captivated, repulsed, excited. Amazed that someone could comprehend such a creature, with its yellow eyes like an arachnid, terrible claws and maw full of teeth. I was equally amazed that someone dared to draw it. I don't know the name of the book, but you could easily find it today, I'm sure.

Sometimes, on those walks home at night, I look for that creature. Oh, I don't look out for it. I look for it. I'm not scared. Maybe it will be there, hissing, waiting in the shadows at the corner of my vision. I will turn to look at it head-on and it will crouch there, poised, with it's baleful eyes and fangs. Perhaps I wanted to be that creature. Perhaps, perversely, I wanted to be that boy.

Maybe it will see me and crouch over me, too. Maybe it will eat me up there and then.

Or maybe... maybe it won't. Maybe it will stop. There will be that pause of a fraction of a second that means thinking. That means cognition. Maybe it won't eat me up at all.

And what then?