My dad used to say, and I remember him saying his mom used to say this, that there is a heaven…must be a heaven…because where we are is hell.
Some didn’t…won’t…understand what the statement means, but I do. Yes, life is wonderful and there is so much to enjoy and think of as heavenly. However, there is also much darkness, cruelty, and hatred.
What interests me is the delving into that darkness…and it’s not always cruel or hate-filled. The human mind is a living computer that needs no input to create and run its own programs. It just is. Each individual mind is uniquely wired. Take the same stimuli and present it to any number of people and see what you get. Sure, some may have similar reactions…even same reactions. Watch those who don’t. Watch the ones who react in fear and the ones who react to that fear. Some of those will literally feed from it and others will absorb the experience and wait to expand on it.
Dark fiction allows us to safely play within the depths of humanity without hurting anybody. It allows us to explore the questions which society doesn’t want us to ask…won’t allow us to experiment and find our own answers.
Dark fiction also knows something made the bump in the night sound. Those shadows we see fleeing from the corner of our eye…something made them. Within every legend…historical or urban…there is something true.
I find dark fiction is the genre to think and know the what ifs.