#perspective change

I have an advice! Separate yourself from your disorder / dysfunctional coping mechanism / urge to sh or engage in addiction. Write a dialogue between this "evil person" and the "healthy part" that wants to get better.

How would the evil voice try to manipulate you, what would it feign?

What would the healthy voice answer? How would it argue back?

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I have to say this feels very odd. I've never written from first person perspective outside of my own personal essays and shiz. Its definitely changing the story a tad but it is making it easier to relay from his personal views.

And then it finally happens. He watches the shadow's finger twitch when his own were completely still. He doesn't know whether he should keep sitting there or celebrate or what. The others still won't believe him if he tries to explain it now...

He decided to try something. He raises a hand in a wave, and his shadow follows, a bit faster than his own hand. "Are you... Real? Or have I truly lost it?" He asks his own shadow, something he never thought he'd ever do. Of course, he gets no verbal response, but the shadows head twitches upwards slightly, in a sort of subtle nod.

The man can hardly contain his excitement, having discovered that his shadow is a living being in itself. "What are you?" He asks, only to be greeted with silence once more. He really should have thought about this before he decided to interrogate something with no mouth.

An idea comes to his mind, and he places a finger on the wall. He traces a symbol with his fingers, watching his shadow trail behind his own finger. Not that one. He tries another one, not that one either. On the 6th symbol, the shadow speeds it's finger up slightly. They do this until a word is formed: 'friend'.

"a friend... Do you have a name, dear friend?" The man asks the shadow. The shadow twitches it's finger forward, and the process begins again, trying symbol after symbol until the next word is found. 'Many.' the man nods slowly, thinking in silence for a long while.

So I decided to write a quick opening for each one because why the hell not?

If you write a lot in third person, feel free to do this with some of your own characters, it has been genuinely really fun. A simple change of perspective can do wonders.

I’ve debated uploading this one for a while now, and if it even counts under the categorization I’ve created for myself with this mini-series. This one is for me! The conflict I feel with it is that it isn’t necessarily a fear, but it falls in line with a lot of the themes I like to add to my horror! So who can really say. (Me. And I can only say “I’m conflicted” so many times before one of you comes and beats me to death with a hammer. So here we are).

My other issue here is the fact that in my duties as a real life freelance archivist (every day I appreciate how funny my title is) I’ve been relistening to/finally properly finishing Magnus, and I hit MAG 74: Fatigue and went, “oh, fuck, @jonnywaistcoat wrote about my own thing better than me” and had that all-too-human experience of remembering You Have Never Had An Original Thought. [I say, as if being Jonny Sims when I grow up isn’t the goal. Why else would I take the chance of bothering that cool guy like this. Get REAL]

But anyway! Here’s my own thing! Maybe eventually I’ll do an actual fear of mine! Something else is coming on Halloween, so take this now! Consider it a way to celebrate TMA 2! Wheeee!

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The man downstairs isn’t my friend. I feel that I should start with that, above all else. What we have isn’t friendship.

I don’t remember when I first met him, although I do remember the first time I saw him downstairs. It was late, a time of day popular for stories such as this. Everyone was asleep. To be the only person awake in a slumbering house is a different kind of loneliness. A safety net exists, but utilizing it feels worse. You respect tiredness, you feel it yourself.

Tip-toe down the stairs, listen to their screaming protests despite your care. The lights in the living room are off, the hallway is black, and yet the pin-prick of light from the oven acts as a beacon. We glide through the hall towards that heavenly yellow-stained circle, thinking of the treats that await us: a full water bottle, maybe even a snack depending on our need for adventure at that moment. So enveloped in this walking dream, I almost didn’t see him. He sat at the kitchen table, between me and the light that was no longer warm and inviting. He was handsome, I think. A crisp black suit, a hauntingly white dress shirt. Dark hair. Forgettable.

Forgettable, and yet, I know him. Why do I know him? He watches. Are his eyes dark? They look like mine, I think. I think. He’s hard to ignore, but you do. Filling a water bottle, checking that the oven is OFF. You forgot once. You all forgot. Is the oven OFF? We go upstairs. He stays.

Every night. The house is quiet. Dead. You aren’t. I never talk to him. I think about it, though. Every night. I wonder what his voice sounds like. He always looks the same. Dark suit, perfect snow-white dress shirt, dark hair, familiar eyes. Blank face.

“What did you do today?” He asks. Our conversations are always mundane. “How did it go for us?” A smile. I don’t know his smile. I imagine it’s like the Cheshire Cat. “Not great,” I reply. “Good!” I replied. “I can’t do this,” I will reply.

I don’t think he wants to do this. I don’t think he wants this. I can’t let myself believe this is what he wants. I don’t know what our relationship is.

I no longer have a downstairs. He still sits at the kitchen table. What do I call him now? He sits. He watches. He whispers. We still don’t speak, and yet: “Are you sure?” “Tell me.” “Speak.”

Do I hate him? Do I need him?

He sits comfortably. If I were to sit and share a dinner, would I be comfortable? Most likely not. He is perfect. He is too at ease. This is not his home. I do not know this familiar man who has my eyes.

I would kill to be rid of him. The question of “who?” changes with the wind. Spite would say him. Justice would say him. Anger and despair and embarrassment would say him. He would say me. Self preservation is a concept he does not know. He only knows me. A kind of sadness fills your chest. The sadness of seeing a child lost in a grocery store- we pity helplessness. And yet, this child does not need me. This child does not care if I live or die. This child is simply using me, making me its vessel.