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I Think People Understand Things Different When They Get Older. It’s Not A Question Of Getting Soft, Or Seeing Things In The Gray Areas Instead Of Black And White. I Really Believe I’m Just Understanding Things Different. Better.

-Jeff Lindsay

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I Think People Understand

Jeff Lindsay

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I Think People Understand Things Different When They Get Older. It’s Not A Question Of Getting Soft, Or Seeing Things In The Gray Areas Instead Of Black And White. I Really Believe I’m Just Understanding Things Different. Better.

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Black And White

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I Had Killed Our Careful Relationship By Driving My Tongue Through Its Heart And Pushing It Off A Cliff.

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After A Long Moment I Closed The Freezer Door. I Wanted To Lie Down And Press My Cheek Against The Cool Linoleum. Instead I Reached Out With My Little Finger And Flipped The Barbie's Head. It Went Thack Thack Against The Door. I Flipped It Again. Thack Thack. Whee. I Had A New Hobby.

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I Nodded With Genuine Synthetic Sympathy.

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I'm Quite Sure More People Fake An Awful Lot Of Everyday Human Contact. I Just Fake All Of It." --dexter

Nothing In Life Is Fair. Fair Is A Dirty Word And I'll Thank You Not To Use That Language Around Me.

Another Dream. Another Long-distance Call On My Phantom Party Line. No Wonder I Had Steadfastly Refused To Have Dreams For Most Of My Life. So Stupid; Such Pointless, Obvious Symbols. Totally Uncontrollable Anxiety Soup, Hateful, Blatant Nonsense.

Or Was He Saying, "hi! Wanna Play?" And I Did. Of Course I Did.

I Waved To Everybody. Some Of Them Even Waved Back. They Knew Me, Had Seen Me Go By Before, Always Cheerful, A Big Hello For Everybody. He Was Such A Nice Man. Very Friendly. I Can’t Believe He Did Those Horrible Things . . .

Whatever Made Me The Way I Am Left Me Hollow, Empty Inside, Unable To Feel. It Doesn't Seem Like A Big Deal. I'm Quite Sure Most People Fake An Awful Lot Of Everyday Human Contact. I Just Fake It All. I Fake It Very Well, And The Feelings Are Never There.

I Was Never More Alive Than When The Dark Passenger Was Driving.

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She Really Did Like Me, The Idiot.

I Let It Ring. I Wanted To Breathe For A Few Minutes, And I Could Think Of Nothing That Couldn't Wait. Besides, I Had Paid Almost $50 For An Answering Machine. Let It Earn Its Keep.

It Was Always Hard Work To Push Through A Crowed Of Reporters With The Scent Of Blood In Their Nostrils. You Might Not Think So, Since On Camera They Appear To Be Brain-damaged Wimps With Severe Eating Disorders. But Put Them At A Police Barricade And A Miraculous Thing Happens...the Strength Comes From Some Mysterious Place-and Somehow, When There Is Gore On The Ground, These Anorexic Creatures Can Push Their Way Through Anything. Without Mussing Their Hair, Too.

What To Wear? I Could Think Of No Guidelines On What We Were Wearing This Season To A Party Forced On You To Celebrate An Unwanted Engagement That Might Turn Into A Violent Confrontation With A Vengeful Maniac. Clearly Brown Shoes Were Out, But Beyond That Nothing Really Seemed De Rigueur.

It Was Clear To Me That It Wouldn't Matter What I Did - They Would Never Truly Appreciate Me Or Learn What I Had To Offer. They Were Far Beyond Fickle - They Were Insensible, Like Kittens,predatory Little Things, Distracted By The First Bit Of String Or Shiny Bauble That Rolled Across The Floor, And Nothing I Could Ever Say Or Do Could Possibly Make Any Kind Of Dent In Their Willful Ignorance.

A Man Who Discovers His Pants Are On Fire Tends To Have Very Little Time To Worry About Somebody Else's Box Of Matches

But Of Course, There's No Rest For The Wicked, Which I Certainly Am; As I Said, No Rest For The Wicked.

The Whole Point Of Wearing A Disguise Was To Be Seen Wearing Her.

Life Teaches Us That Human Thought Almost Never Walks Hand In Hand With Logic, And It Is Usually Counterproductive To Raise The Point.

Stop The Nurse Like The Monkey.

Because I Am An Inhuman Monster, I Tend To Be Logical.

Now I Know What It Is Like To Feel Like A Total Idiot.

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…a Cheerful Black Shadow Reared Up Behind Him As He Spoke, Thundering A Happy Challenge To My Dark Passenger, Which Slid Forward And Bellowed Back.

Dying Makes Everyone Weaker, Subject To Painful Insight, And Not Always Insight Into Any Kind Of Special Truth - It's Just The Approaching End That Makes People Want To Believe They Are Seeing Something In The Line Of A Great Revelation.

And Here I Always Thought Morality Was Useless.

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Terrible Things

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I Think People Understand Things Different When They Get Older. It’s Not A Question Of Getting Soft, Or Seeing Things In The Gray Areas Instead Of Black And White. I Really Believe I’m Just Understanding Things Different. Better.

Black And White

It’s An Odd Term, 'girlfriend,' Particularly For Grown Persons. And In Practice It Provides An Even Odder Concept. Generally Speaking, In Adults It Described A Woman, Not A Girl, Who Was Willing To Provide Sex, Not Friendship. In Fact, From What I Had Observed It Was Quite Possible For One To Actively Dislike One’s Girlfriend, Although Of Course True Hatred Is Reserved For Marriage.

What Do You Want A Clock For?” “to Find Out What Time It Is,” I Said. “i Think That’s The Usual Purpose.

I Often Find Myself In Situations Where It Seems To Me Like Everyone Else Has Read The Instruction Book

In That Tremendous Flash Of Freedom, On My Way To Do The Thing For The First Time, Sanctioned By Almighty Harry, I Receded, Faded Back Into The Scenery Of My Own Dark Self, Whole The Other Me Crouched And Growled. I Would Do It At Last, Do What I Had Been Created To Do. And I Did.

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Our Universe Is Ruled By Random Whim, Inhabited By People Who Laugh At Logic.

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In My Lifelong Study Of Human Beings, I Have Found That No Matter How Hard They Might Try, They Have Found No Way Yet To Prevent The Arrival Of Monday Morning. And They Do Try, Of Course, But Monday Always Comes, And All The Drones Have To Scuttle Back To Their Dreary Workaday Lives Of Meaningless Toil And Suffering.

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Of Course It Was A Terrible Thing, And The World Would Be A Much Better Place Without Someone In It Who Could Do That, But Did That Mean We Had To Miss Lunch?

And I Was Having Too Much Fun To Stop Now.

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And So As Much As I Can, I Care About Her, Dear Deborah. It's Probably Not Love, But I Would Rather She Were Happy.

The Students We Saw Were All Bright, Attractive, And Polite, And The Teachers All Seemed To Be Smart And Dedicated, And I Began To Appreciate The Benefits Of A Private School Education. If Only I'd Had The Opportunity To Attend A Place Like This, Who Knows What I Might Have Become? Perhaps Instead Of A Mere Blood-spatter Analyst Who Slunk Away At Night To Kill Without Conscience, I Could Have Become A Doctor, Or A Physicist, Or Even A Senator Who Slunk Away At Night To Kill Without Conscience. It Was Terribly Sad To Think Of All My Wasted Potential.

...being Torn Apart By Far Too Many Loyalties That Could Not Possibly Live Together In The Same Brain.

A Man Can Take Only So Much. Even A Phony Man Like Me.

Nothing Else Loves Me, Or Ever Will. Not Even - Especially - Me. I Know What I Am And That Is Not A Thing To Love.

Rectory Always Sounded To Me Like A Place Where You Would Find A Proctologist.

Killing Makes Me Feel Good.

...my Conscience Has The Same Hard Reality As A Unicorn.

Me, Feeling. What A Concept.

Of Course, Having Information To Use Is One Thing. Knowing What It Means And How To Use It Is A Different Story.

It Revealed A Cruelty That Really Made One Wonder If The Universe Was Such A Good Idea After All.

Getting Yelled At By A Furious Woman Should Be Treated As A Semiformal Occasion.

I Thought About The Nice Clothes That I Always Wore. Well Of Course I Did. I Took Pride In Being The Best Dressed Monster In Dade County.

It Really Is Better To Be Lucky Than To Be Good.

You're Driving Me Normal!

I Had Become A Perfect Fake Human, Saying The Stupid And Pointless Things That Humans Say To Each Other All Day Long.

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I Think That's Nice, And If I Could Have Feelings At All I Would Have Them For Deb.

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For My Part, My Interest In Paris Had Faded Away Completely Long Ago When I Learned That It Was In France.

I Did Not Like This Feeling Of Having Feelings.

...she Opened The Door Very Slowly And Carefully, Half Hiding Behind It, As If Badly Frightened Of What Might Be Waiting For Her On The Other Side. And Considering That It Was Me Waiting, This Showed Rare Common Sense.

Since I Am Not Actually A Real Human Being, My Emotional Responses Are Generally Limited To What I Have Learned To Fake.

A Reasonable Being Might Think That He And I Could Find Some Common Ground; Have A Cup Of Coffee And Compare Our Passengers, Exchange Trade Talk And Chitchat About Dismemberment Techniques. But No: Doakes Wanted Me Dead. And I Found It Difficult To Share His Point Of View.

And Once Again I Found Myself Wondering, As I Drifted Off To Stunned And Unbelieving Sleep:how Do These Terrible Things Always Happen To Me?

This Was Just No Fun. I Wanted My Brain Back.

It's Always Me, Isn't It? I'm Not Really A Very Nice Person, But For Some Reason It's Always Me That They Come To With Their Problems.

It’s Like, Everything Really Is Two Ways, The Way We All Pretend It Is And The Way It Really Is

For The First Time I Could Remember, I Felt Weak, Woozy And Stupid— Like A Human-being. Like A Very Small And Helpless Human-being.

Feeling - What Authentic Human Fun!

I Don't Know If You Have Noticed This, But It Is Quite Possible For Two Human Beings To Have A Conversation In Which One Or Both Parties Involved Has Absolutely No Idea What They're Talking About.

And As Always Seems To Happen When I Have Reached The Point Where I Am Ready To Take Decisive Action, Everything Began To Happen At Once.

I Know Family Comes First, But Shouldn't That Mean After Breakfast?

They Like To Tell Us That It Is Important To Speak The Truth, But It Has Been My Experience That Real Happiness Lies In Having People Tell You What You Want To Believe, Usually Not The Same Thing At All, And If You Have To Stub Your Toe On The Truth Later, So Be It.

That's Why I Liked Him, I Think. Another Guy Pretending To Be Human, Just Like Me.

I Mean, Really: What Kind Of Person Could Possibly Dislike Me?

The Faster It Ran Away From Me. And I Found Myself Reasoning That Perhaps One More Beer Would Unlock The Doors Of Perception.

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