I Think About Monsters

I think about monsters a lot. I think about the silences around them, the way words can flatten and reduce (thinking, loving, feeling, fearing) humans into 2 dimensions. I think about how women are sometimes singled into the sum of their body parts; how some men are simplified into the singularity of their actions.

I think about mobs a lot, their sum intelligences (or lack thereof).

The way emotions running high can ignite, burning all nuance and complexity into glowing ash. I think about the dark, sweet flame of righteousness asserted, and vengeance vindicated. I think about that photograph of Thammasat: the chair-beaten corpse hanging before a clapping, shrieking crowd. I think about Sentences, and how words can simplify and shorten everything, everyone.

I think about monsters. I think about today’s remotely mustered mobs. I cower at the righteous rage needed to say, s/he deserved it, and more; how it has possessed me sometimes too – to subside later leaving only a sick, hollow taste of self-disgust.

Where do I stand? I am standing in the half-light, uneasy and uncertain. I am thinking about monsters, their humanities boiled away by the hot rage of righteousness. I wonder at Justice, and whether it still lives with Mercy. I wonder at ruined lives.

I wonder why we keep doing this to each other. I wonder if we will ever grow up, and out of these consuming furies.