In which I prove myself a coward...

There Are Monsters

(Image from You Tube)

Let me admit up front that horror films scare me. I usually avoid them, even the dumb ones that don't scare anybody else. I have a propensity to believe that evil lurks in the dark corners of our world, and my vivid imagination supplies the uncanny details.

Yet . . . these films exert an attraction on me, and I occasionally try to watch one, partly to prove to myself that I'm not a coward . . . but I'm nearly always proven wrong.

Anyway, this past weekend, I was alone because my wife and kids were off on a jaunt to a traditional Korean folk village, leaving me to care for the cats and work on my academic things. On Saturday afternoon, I took a break from my own duties and rode my bike through the labyrinth of streets down to the river and then along the bike path there. I rode for about an hour upstream until I reached an old railroad that marks the usual turnaround point for me and my family whenever we ride this route. I stopped there for a couple of beers as reward, then returned downstream to where I'd begun and turned off the path and back into the maze of streets to find my way home.

In all, I'd been out riding for nearly three hours and felt a bit spent from the exertion. After a shower, I decided to relax by watching a scary ten-minute film titled There Are Monsters that I found advertised on You Tube.

Bad decision as a way to relax. It scared me . . . but, as acknowledged above, I'm easily unnerved by horror films. Predictably, as darkness fell, I came to realize the gravity of my situation, for I was alone in my apartment except for those dark entities supplied by my suspicions about the world and my overactive imagination.

Bedtime threatened the sleep of reason that produces monsters, and I found myself reluctant to go into my bedroom alone, partly due to a scene in the film, so I decided to sleep on the sofa, where the cats would keep me company. But the cats didn't cooperate. They thought that I was acting weird and kept themselves far away . . . or did they sense some dark entity within? Cats are mysterious creatures and perhaps have their own feline fears about things lurking in the minds of their masters. Left to myself, I therefore did not sleep so well, for I needed to maintain a strong defense against things that don't exist but scare us anyway. I must have succeeded, for I don't recall suffering any nightmares, and I somehow survived my dark night of the soul.

Anyway, for braver souls who want to check out the film, just click here -- but only if you don't mind a bit of profanity in the movies that you see -- and after you've watched, you can report back on how much more courageous you are than I am.