the dark side

i've always had somewhat of a fascination with the dark side of things -- what people normally don't openly talk about or particularly like to talk about.  but it's there, underneath it all, lurking and murky, below the surface.

in my eighth grade health class, out of all the topics we were free to pick from, i chose suicide for my class project.  i can even vividly remember the cover photo i had illustrated for my folder, a black and white sketch done in pencil entitled, "... and her eyes saw... suicide."  i drew an anime-like face of a young girl, her eyes as the center of attention, her pupils telling the story.  i often wonder what my teacher must have thought of me at the time, this shy, quiet girl interested in researching such a deep, dark topic.  but that is what it was; an interest, an allure for the unknown, an unmistakable desire to peek, like the pandora's box-effect.  i wanted to see, despite the stigma, no matter how ugly, how frightening.  i had to see.

in middle school i'd also written a play that my classmates voted on to perform, but this was quickly nixed because the administration deemed it too dark (and i suppose disturbing) to present in front of the student body.  i hadn't understood what the big deal was.  the story (what i remember of it) was about a girl who was frequently visited by a strange, dark man.  i played on the usual good vs. evil theme, so i'll let you guess who represented what.  the girl didn't realize until the last scene who she had been conversing with the entire time, that she'd been secretly battling temptation, and ultimately the magnitude of her decisions at the time she had made them.

i can't say that in adulthood this curiosity has subsided.  i have sometimes thought, is there something wrong with me?  does this make me abnormal? crazy?  it's not like i had exceptional hardship in my life; if anything, i grew up more or less sheltered, fairly well-cushioned.  so perhaps that's what drew me to want to catch a glimpse of what i knew was somewhere in the shadows, ironically what i was being shielded from.  i found it hard to process feelings like love, joy, and peace, without heartbreak, despair, and scarrage.  i needed to understand pain before i could truly cherish liveliness.  i needed to understand life when it wasn't so pretty.  because that's what life is... not always so darn pretty.

when i want a taste of unpretty, i turn to novels of the twisted variety.  anything by augusten burroughs, for example.  recently, i discovered an author by the name of gillian flynn.  the first book i'd read of hers was sharp objects, which my coworker passed on to me.  i wasn't sure how i'd felt about it; it was quite unexpected and shocking to say the least, but it was a story that stayed with me long after i'd finished and passed the book along.  there was a grit and rawness to the storytelling that i'd enjoyed.

a couple of weeks ago, when i was desperate for something good to read, and i mean not-wanting-to-put-down-for-a-minute good, staying-up-til-all-hours-of-the-night good, i stumbled upon gillian flynn's new book, gone girl, as it was one of the top kindle downloads.  i downloaded a sample and started reading.  i was immediately hooked.  it had the same sharp, abrasive writing as her first book.  and from the very first page, it had the psychological mind-screwing suspense i was craving for.  i mean, check out the opening quote:

"Love is the world's infinite mutability; lies, hatred, murder even, are all knit up in it; it is the inevitable blossoming of its opposites, a magnificent rose smelling faintly of blood."  -Tony Kushner, The Illusion

my kind of book.

the story is unbelievable yet believable, a bit unnerving, bone-chilling.  there are twists and turns until the very end, and even then it doesn't end.  it seeps into your subconscious, begging you to think: do we really know the people closest to us?  and if we found out who they really were, what would that knowledge make us do?

it keeps me up at night, wondering in the dark.