After reading my latest short story, Mike said, “Wow, that’s pretty dark.”
Yes, it is. He’s right, and I do have a very dark side. It’s shadowed my whole life, usually in the form of nightmares and catastrophic thinking. When the wind sets off our Ring camera my imagination can turn the weather into a home invasion, a blood-soaked crime scene or even a wrongful conviction if I’m having a low self-esteem day.
Of course, there are pills for that, and therapy and meditation and, and, and…
But there is no pill for the demon that peeks around every horrific headline lately, the demon who whispers, “What if this is it? What if all your most unspeakable fears are coming true at last?”
As far as I know there is no cure for situational existential dread. For what it’s worth, I often find meditation to be the gateway to a downward spiral, but out of those have emerged some of the best story ideas. And I have found over the years that while there is no cure for it, that dread can be treated with a keyboard, a pen and a piece of paper, or even the back of a receipt. I don’t mind sitting with my demons for a while, by now we’re used to each other but, for my sanity’s sake, at some point they must be exorcised—trapped in the page.
“What if”, you say? What if indeed. The stories I write might make you chuckle, they might scare you to death, or they might just make you wonder what the fuck. But dark times need dark people to take notes. Art, of any kind, not only illuminates the awful, but uses that light to show us the way out. Creativity starves the despair that feeds on helplessness, so please, if you’re looking for a way to fight back…sing it, paint it, play it or write it down. Frightening as it is.