EVIL

Ever since I was a small child, I have always been attracted to scary stuff. Scary books, movies and even slightly creepy situations.

Recently, one of our book club selections was "House of Leaves". This is a total f*%#-up your brain kind of book. Purely evil stuff. Of course, I enjoyed it immensely. Which got me to thinking......."Why do I love this kind of genre? What kind of sick person gets pleasure out of reading or seeing movies about evil stuff? What is evil? Do I need a psychiatrist?

My friend, Zen....Way Down in Mayberry cannot tolerate the dark side. Zen won't watch movies, read books or even talk about the word evil. Zen is completely freaked out by it. She won't be reading October's book club selection and won't even be attending our lovely get-together that month because we will be discussing a scary subject.

I think about how she and I would react in a situation that was scary. Zen is very fit and works out several times a week. She doesn't take crap from anyone about anything but always in a calm sort of way.....hence the name I've given her, "Zen." Let's say if someone were attacking her, she could more easily get out of the situation than I could. Zen could hit/kick and then run to a safe place. Me on the other hand, I know I couldn't run to the corner away from my attacker without taking two puffs of my inhaler first. I don't think during an attack, I would actually have time to find my inhaler in my purse and then convince my attacker to wait while I take a puff or two. I would be doomed. Raped, stabbed blah...blah..
But if we were in a different situation, let's say a house that is haunted and we are being psychologically messed with by these eerie inhabitants....I may have the upper hand. While Zen would be crouching in the corner and crying uncontrollably, I would be standing up to the evil forces and trying to reckon with them. I would then have to drag Zen out of the house (because she would be paralyzed with fear) after I had defeated the ghosts.

As I am writing this, maybe I am able to understand how we are different and how if a real evil PERSON came upon us....I would be much more screwed then my fellow Zen friend. Evil is real....just not in the floaty form of vampires, ghost and apparitions. There are truly evil people out there that do absolutely terrible things to their victims. Zen is much more equipped to handle this kind of evil, even if she doesn't want to talk or think about it.

So in the meantime, I will continue to read and watch scary movies. The devil will lose, good will win...most of the time. Zen will continue to deny or think of evil- but if push came to shove, she would kick the holy shit out of her attacker. Hands down.