For The Love Of Fear

Sorry to all my avid readers. I tease you with three bright and simply fascinating blog entries and then disappear for 2 weeks. I've just haven't had any real motivation to write. But then today, I was struck by something absolutely shocking. They found a body in a car near where I live that had been decomposing slowly over the past 2 weeks. Isn't that utterly gruesome? The greatest part is that I drove by the spot four times last week on my way to and from the auto shop. Meaning I drove by a dead body and didn't notice. Then today I found it blocked off when I went to drop off my car (to get the lower ball joints replaced, which is another story entirely).

It's amazing that people absolutely are fascinated by things which disgust and repulse them. Instead of wanting to avoid the area I was so tempted to park my car and try and see what was going on. It's like the little babies that love playing peek-a-boo. To them it’s a shock and it might make them jump but they still lean forward in anticipation and fall back laughing in hysterics when you pop your face out and say "boo". People love to be terrified or disgusted. Some people like getting their hands dirty, some people like driving too fast and some people like sky diving. I would love to know why this is. It is beyond me. I hate scary movies, and I'm terrified of sky diving but I love the nauseous yet anxious build up when I'm watching shows like fear factor where people are eating bugs and cow penises or jumping from one moving beam to another, defying gravity.

Some people have higher limits than others. I think it's like one of those spicy food things. Depending on the foods you ate when you were younger, and the tolerance for it that you were born with, some people are able to handle suicide sauce on their wings while others have a hard enough time with the honey garlic.

Anyways, the guy that drove me back to work was all excited that he got to tell someone all about the dead body. He went on to say how the police officers who went in the car to get the body were saying how it started disintegrating when they touched it. Now this can't be true. I'm imagining a scene from a vampire movie where the vampire turns to dust in the sunlight. But this is what happens when people want to get the shock effect from their listener. And then the story changes from person to person.

And as final proof of how I love shock effect and gruesomeness: I wrote this didn't I? and I'm secretly hoping for shocked and disgusted comments and reactions from every reader.

So here is my adaptation to the story: The body had been sitting in a car in the sun for a MONTH, slowly rotting. The smell pervaded the car until the entire block smelt of death and despair. A small child was playing catch outside his home when his ball went flying beyond his grasp and crashed through the window of the abandoned car. Green waves of putrid air poured out of the hole in the window. Through the haze and stench the boy crept up to the car to retrieve his ball. There was a hand next to the ball. He peeked in closer, fear sending goosebumps up his neck and down his spine. The image before him sent waves of nausea through him. The man had been dead for some time. The boy ran as fast as he could, forgetting his ball, forgetting everything except for the image of the man hunched over the wheel, slowly turning to dust.

It is a horrible thing, death is. Yet without a name and face to attach to the person it seems surreal. Like something on television. Until the picture is released in the papers and a name is supplied I will continued to be fascinated. Once the body has an identity it will become a tragedy. Once a family is attached and a life story is told there will be no more fascination. Only shock and sadness. It becomes something you can relate to and then there is a fear that isn't addictive, a fear that isn't a thrill.