Normalize. Compartmentalize. Over-analyze. Kick it down through the trapdoor of the oubliette, shut it firm and lock it away with a key. Swallow the key and forget it even existed. Let the darkness consume the darkness. Set a timer on the app. Get on with it. Re-focus. Pretend. Fail.
That is what most of us do when confronted with evil. A dozen counter-intuitive, conflicting, inefficient, insufficient, barely explainable means to keep the cold fingers of dread creeping upon us at bay. So then, what is there left to do?
How do you explain the ineffable? That which you thought man is incapable of (right before he surprised you yet again). It’s a slippery spiral that winds its way down, too many voices asking too many questions forming too many opinions too much noise clamoring for your attention. One slip is all it takes, to send you tumbling. Yet you cling onto the railing, stumbling, before getting back up. You search for reason in madness. You prop yourself up against others, for support. And still, evil is not far from reach. Normalized. A dinner-table topic. Nonchalantly leering at you. Immune, with a foot wedged in the door and you cannot quite slam it shut.
Coping sounds vaguely… vain? Vain, because it supposes you have the strength to absorb the blows and still carry on doing the little things, pretending, doing your best. But it weighs on you. It dredges up your frailties. The weight is crushing, heart-wrenching. It leaves you stranded, with no help in sight. Coping is solitary… until it is no more. Conducted in the corner of your mind, until you open up, and find timid words. Words that strung together may hold some meaning yet.
Embrace. Hand in the resignation letter to solitude here and now. Answers are not yours alone to find. Sympathize. Empathize. Don’t hold back. Find enjoyment in the small acts, like buying ice cream for your daughter. Look at her beam at you. Absorb it. Get on with it. Succeed.
It’s the best kind of evil, the one that doesn’t exist.
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