After The Movie

The monsters are gone. Vanquished and vanished by might or wit or magic or luck, dissolved by daylight or science or mobs with pitchforks and torches.

The monsters are gone. The black-gloved killer has been hoisted into the air. The man in the mask has been dragged down to hell. Goodness and light have prevailed, the story tied into a neat little knot, uncuttable.

The monsters are gone, but you remain. The sun has come up. The faint traces of magic linger in the air like garlic and boiled cabbage, a not unwelcome taint, a crack in the sane facade of the world.

The monsters are gone; rubble and bodies are all that remain. Soon descend the scientists, priests of the new religion, and the priests, technicians of the old science. They will explain. They will explain. The monsters are gone, but you have changed. Two plus two equals four is no longer fact, but propoganda, a lie bigger than Columbus.

The monsters are gone. Will you seek comfort in the arms of faith, lighting candles and kneeling in ancient rituals? Will you become a wizard'sMickey Mouseapprentice, learning the dark arts in an alchemy of self-defense? Will you find asylum in a padded room with monitored ejaculations and a paper cup brimming with gel-covered capsules? The monsters are gone, and you walk into the light, but you have learned to see deep into the ultraviolet. Objects of threat are prosaic. Who needs beware a snake, a spider, an edge with a sudden drop, when true fear lives in a sunlit room, a factory, a vase arranged with flowers?

This node was inadvertantly nuked and has been like so many of its subjects, ressurected.Reprinted by permission of the author, me