“Should you be doing that?”
“What?”
“Writing about things you know nothing about?”
“Such as…?”
“What it’s like to be a…a thing. A ‘monster,’ for lack of a better term. Something between living and dead, not fully being either? Feeling…” it tilted its head sideways, like a bird, “Well, not quite complete, but not incomplete.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Not so much a difference as a distinction; it’s small, but it’s there.”
I turned in my chair. “Well, no one really knows how that feels, do they?”
My guest smiled and put its chin in its hand. “I would imagine…it’s like being uncertain of everything all the time.”
I gave it some thought. “I would imagine that’s probably an apt description.”
“Thank you. But you haven’t answered my question. Why do you write such things?”
“The mystery of it, I suppose. Humanity, given life, is fascinated with not living. And if things get painful enough, actually yearn not to live anymore. I imagine living forever as a damned thing, whatever its form, could get tedious.”
“It has its moments.”
I chuckled. “Really? And how would you know?”
Again, the enigmatic smile, but this time followed by silence.
“It’s cold in here,” I said. “Is there a window open somewhere?”
I began to shiver.
“Something’s open,” my guest replied, gradually blurring in my vision,
“But it’s not a window…”
Nightshade Stories 