I love writing, and when I do, I especially enjoy writing fantasy fiction. Hero versus villain, good versus evil, it’s often a genre that can highlight the extremes in human nature. Heroes can highlight the best characteristics we are capable of; loyalty, courage, bravery. On the flip side, villains can highlight the dregs of human nature; selfishness, deceit, hate, greed. Indeed, we have in us tremendous potential. Either for good or evil. Fantasy allows the writer to invent literal monsters to represent those characteristics. Fortunately, as a writer, I have seen monsters first hand. 

I’ve seen people who lack all loyalty burn those they claim to love to protect themselves. I’ve witnessed people lie to everyone including authority in an effort to guard their position or their reputation. I’ve seen parents abandon children. I’ve seen children turn on their parents and attack them in hurtful ways. I’ve seen friends destroy friends socially, betraying their trust and lying then laughing at them while they suffer in pain. There is literally no end to the pain a person will inflict on another person. 

In my own world, all of that has been done to me and more. Indeed, I’ve been broken by the depth of betrayal and lies created to wreck me. I’ve had someone tell me they love me while working to bury me and leave me ruined. I’ve endured campaigns against me based on a fantasy invented to cripple me. I know monsters well. 

I saw a mother, unable to deal with parenting, pour more and more drugs down her child’s mouth leaving her forever damaged and altered. I saw a wife call police on her husband because he wouldn’t accept her lies and then use authority to put him in check. I have seen people lie in court, under oath, to judges to protect their egos and cement a false narrative that served no one except the person who invented it. I’ve seen monsters. 

I’ve seen people use and violate other people then blame them for the hurt they caused. I’ve seen an abuser spin the truth into a sick web that ensnared the very person they wounded. How easily do evil people dress themselves in victims’ clothing and appear so meek and mild? It seems wolves can wear sheeps’ clothing comfortably. I’ve seen monsters. 

Truth endures, however. Justice finds a way. Monsters are real. Evil is real. I will ever write and fight…monsters.