Monsters among us

Afraid of things that go bump in the night? I am. I like to read stuff that scare the daylights outta me. The more scared I am when I turn out the light ( if I turn out the light), the happier I am.

I am a big Stephen King fan, but only one of his books ever scared me to the point where I had to put it down - and never open it again. Clowns still haunt me to this day. I opened IT 13 years ago for the first time. I closed it two weeks later, somewhere on page 700, and I haven't opened it since. I doubt I ever will.

It seems kind of silly to be afraid of pretend monsters when real ones stalk us every day. Even those we think will never be possible of killing, can turn out to be the worst of the lot. How many times have you heard, "He was such a pleasant man. I would never have thought he's capable of murder."

Look at Casey Anthony, on trial for murdering her little girl, Caylee. I don't want to follow the popular trend and say she did do it - but the evidence against her is rather compelling. To me, there isn't a bigger monster in the world than a mother who kills her own child. The trust a child has for its mother is complete, to have it shattered like that is the height of evil.

What about poor Baby Peter? Whose mother sat and watched, even laughed, while her boyfriend systematically abused her little boy to death? She even helped to cover up the crime scene. Can you imagine what must've gone through that poor little baby's head? How he must've felt while he was being hurt, and his mommy didn't help him? Baby P's "mother" is beyond evil. She's the dreg of human society - the pond scum everyone always talks about.

Canadian Penny Boudreau killed her 12 year old daughter, because her boyfriend told her to choose. She chose her boyfriend, and murdered her child. I will never understand how someone can choose a man (or a woman for that matter) over their own flesh and blood.

Are things getting worse? There seems to be more violence, more blood, more death. Husband killing wives, wives sleeping with boyfriends, boyfriends killing husbands. Mothers killing babies, children killing children, strangers killing strangers.

Has it always been this way? Or is society disintegrating?

Why be afraid of pretend monsters, when the real ones are those we should fear? Because, we know there's no such thing as a killer clown hiding in our toilets - and there's a kind of comfort in that.

Thinking of the real monsters is just too disconcerting.