Monsters live among us. There’s a lot of evil people in this world. Who knows why they turned out the way they did. But what made the victims so ill-prepared to slay them? Why did they not prepare for the fight with the best weaponry? What went so wrong in this fairytale from hell?
These are the kinds of thoughts that make me feel like a horrible human being.
Maybe not horrible. Just cold. Sometimes lacking empathy. A robot who just says things and doesn’t react when it hurts. Like someone who would be willing to take another’s life just because she feels wronged.
Well, good news for you because I would never do that. Not for as long as I live. But I do watch a lot of content about people who do just that. True crime. The graphic tales of the worst planet earth has to offer. Makes me feel a little bit like a weirdo. But this kind of content is just so gripping and fascinating to me. Watching these stories about the most despicable human beings and how they could be so stupid to think they wouldn’t get caught. To take the life of another human being is one of the worst crimes against humanity one can think of. And yet these people felt it was their right to do just that. A crime like that cannot stand. So it didn’t. And watching the tactics used by the justice system to bring these people to consequence can be a plotline all on its own.
There’s so many different components to these stories, that it’s important to never forget the victims in all this. No one deserves their life taken by another human being. A life is not anyone else’s to take. It’s the one privilege we get from the moment we exist. It’s our one shot at life. And I hope people take the best care of theirs they possibly can.
And then there’s the part of me that wonders why the victims did not see the warning signs. What went so wrong? What led them to a place in their lives where they met, and interacted with, someone who eventually attacked them?
Maybe I’m too focused on myself. Or maybe I’ve just seen some shit and know how bad it can get. I like to think I am good at picking up good vibes off of other people. My dad speaks of people auras all the time, and I do think it rings true. I think a lot more people than I originally thought can pick up on it too, especially now. We poked and prodded our way out of a global pandemic. One that shut down all life on earth as we knew it. We reduced our cities to ghost towns, only the few straggling zombies made it out of the woodwork to carve out their own little lives. We saw people come, and people go. Death and despair hitting us from all quadrants of the universe. 2020 seems like a lifetime ago. Because it was. And now we’re watching a brand new film unfold right from the comforts of our homes.
And I’ve come to the point in my life where whoever enters my home will have nothing but good intentions for me and my family. Especially if that person is there to create a family of our own.
I just want us to choose our partners a little better. Our friends. Our heroes. We’ve put so much weight into everyone for what they say rather than how they act. It’s allowed us to ignore our own baser instincts. You hear true crime tales of people who knew something was off about the person who snapped and failed to overpower the criminally insane. That is not victim blaming and I’m really not trying to make it sound as such. I can’t know what another person trapped by another is going through. I’ve never come close to anyone every attempting to kill me or violate me and I’m not going to pretend I know even a hundredth of what that’s like. I guess I just wish things would have turned out differently than them. Life isn’t fair for some. Life ends tragically and horribly for some. They live their own nightmares, their own slasher flick that isn’t always meant to have a satisfactory ending. But they live on through their stories, as we never forget the injustice done upon them. Perhaps it’s a twisted cautionary tale of what to look out for as we deal with these same people who we unfortunately are left to share a planet with.
Crime is never going to stop. We will never reach full utopia. It’s impossible. There is not one made for this earth. Maybe in our next lives. But until then, we will have to see atrocities up close and personal. And a lot more may be coming down the pike. Soon. I just wish for all of us to trust ourselves and our baser instincts more. When danger approaches, do all you can to save yourself and your loved ones. We’re being fed lies day in and day out, as the powers that be create a world only they want to live in. One where they can get away with their destructive and dehumanizing acts and absolutely no one complains. An evil shadow realm that the Devil himself would find too hot to handle.
They’re trying it. But we won’t let them win. We need to create our own storyline where good triumphs over evil. Where the retribution comes before someone gets seriously hurt. We can save more as we hold those who cannot save themselves accountable. We’re smart people. We can see when they want to sell us the bullshit. I truly do believe that. We’ve seen enough villains in our time that we’ll just know not to trust as easily anymore. Anyone who gives off the bad juju will be called out. You’ll be seeing it more and more. People can’t stand being treated as they once were. The Final Girl will fight back against the murderous antagonist after he wiped out her entire peer group. She’ll always have the potential to triumph once she faces her own fears and refuses to lose.
It all starts with seeing the evil right in front of our faces and not putting up with it anymore. The criminals among us never seem to get away with their high-profile crimes. Even if no arrests come or the bail reform lets them out early, everyone’s on camera all the time. We don’t need screenwriters to tell our stories. Reality writes the best plotlines sometimes. We’ll know when to let the scene play out, and when we need to offer a rewrite of the current source material.
Monsters don’t have to be three-eyed space aliens. The simplest one can be your fellow man. That may be the scariest notion of them all.
balanced & fair 