Shadows on the Horizon
874 Words
Growing up in the countryside, my childhood was a tapestry of wide-open spaces and boundless adventures. Alongside my three brothers, I was an architect of endless fantasies, from ninjas lurking in the underbrush to Power Rangers battling unseen foes, and soldiers camouflaged by the wilderness that was our backyard. Despite the constant undercurrent of our parents' frequent arguments, our home was a sanctuary filled with care and laughter, further enlivened by the comings and goings of a menagerie of family pets.
School presented a different kind of battlefield. Graduating was more than just a personal victory; it was a family milestone, considering not everyone had managed it. It felt like a significant leap towards a promising future, a tangible step away from the simpler, more innocent conflicts of my youth.
However, as I transitioned into adulthood, something within me began to shift imperceptibly at first. It wasn't a sudden snap but rather a slow and insidious transformation. Daily irritations began to accumulate, snowballing into an overwhelming disdain for the mundane aspects of life around me. Before long, my mind began to entertain dark, thrilling, and terrifying thoughts.
While driving, I would find myself fantasizing about catastrophic scenarios—veering into oncoming traffic or steering through a crowded park. I assigned imaginary points for each 'target' hit, these thoughts providing a perverse form of escapism from the numbing monotony of daily life.
But the darkness didn't limit itself to faceless crowds; it began to seep into my daily interactions. At the grocery store, the cashier, a young woman with a forgettable face, handed me my change. As her fingers brushed mine, a vivid image flashed through my mind: her gasping for breath as my hands closed around her throat. The scenario played out in seconds, yet it was intensely detailed, providing a rush of adrenaline that was both shocking and exhilarating.
Similarly, during a routine dinner at a local diner, the waitress—a middle-aged lady who always smiled too widely—came to take my order. As she leaned over the table, I imagined breaking my glass and using a jagged shard to slice across her throat. The imagined sound of the glass cutting through skin, the hypothetical sight of blood spouting in arcs, filled me with a disturbing sense of power.
These fantasies, however, were kept secret, confined to the darkest recesses of my mind. The thought of expressing them, let alone acting on them, was unthinkable, bound to bring judgment, condemnation, or worse. Thus, I guarded them closely, finding twisted solace in the privacy of my imagination.
Nightly, I returned to the solitude of my room, where the shadows seemed to echo my thoughts, creating a chorus of whispers that only I could decipher. There, I sat alone, contemplating the vivid scenes that played over and over in my mind. Each scenario was more detailed than the last, feeding a part of me that I neither fully understood nor could control.
As the darkness within me grew, so too did the realization of its depth. It had become a part of me, ingrained and perhaps inseparable. And in that realization, there was a peculiar comfort—knowing that these shadows on the horizon, these glimpses into the abyss, were mine alone to explore.
In this quiet acceptance, I continued to live a dual existence: outwardly normal, yet inwardly alive with a dark narrative that seemed as endless as those childhood fields. Each day passed with the external monotony of routine, while internally, a storm of dark thoughts raged, a tempest unseen but profoundly felt. As I lay down each night, the shadows of my room didn't just reflect darkness; they seemed to absorb my secrets, holding them close in a symbiotic embrace. Here, in the quiet hours before sleep claimed me, I conversed silently with these shadows, a dark symphony only I could hear and appreciate.
In these moments, suspended between reality and the world of my own making, I found a strange kinship with the darkness. It was an acknowledgment, a whisper in the void, that perhaps I was not alone in my thoughts. Somewhere, beyond the tangible, others might share this nightmarish affinity, this dance with shadow and thought.
Beneath the Horizon's Gaze
In childhood fields, dreams were sewn,
Brothers in arms, love and strife known.
School days passed, fears restrained,
Adulthood’s weight, stress unchained.
My mind a stage for darker plays,
Mundane drives turned deadly frays.
Chaos imagined, twisted score,
Each life taken, points galore.
Darkness spread beyond the wheel,
To daily deals and every meal.
Cashier’s touch, brief and slight,
Ignited visions of spectral blight.
At the diner, smiles served wide,
Waitress’s neck, fantasies reside.
Glass shattered, sharp and slick,
Morbid thoughts, disturbingly thick.
Scenes kept locked in shadow's grip,
Hidden deep, my mind’s tight ship.
Not shared, nor seen,
In silent whispers, they convene.
Nightly in my quiet room,
Walls witness to my gloom.
Thoughts swirl, dance, and prance,
In darkness, my hidden expanse.
Comfort in the abyss’s call,
Shadows close, they never fall.
Dual life’s thread, by day normal,
By night, thoughts morbidly formal.
Conversing with shadows deep,
In twilight hours before sleep.
A dark symphony, only I hear,
In this dance with night, I disappear.
- Writer
