It’s October! Which means that it’s getting cooler; everywhere except the south that is. I spent the early afternoon sweating profusely at my favorite local brewery. October also means that Halloween is fast approaching. Halloween means candy, costumes, and for my wife and I, a lot of horror movies. So with the general subject of the horror genre in mind, I’ll be posting a horror short story every weekend in October. Or at least that’s the plan… I do still work full time. The intro to my latest short story “Easy Way Out” is below. Enjoy!
Nature is good, but in small doses. The impulse to “go back to nature” in any capacity is a strange one. If you think evolution is correct, you’re wanting to return to something that mankind spent millions of years evolving to escape. Evolution is an escape from the horror of nature. It’s an escape from the food chain. Alternatively, if you’re religious and believe that an almighty being created mankind as a higher being than the rest of the animals, then one can’t exactly return to nature since we weren’t ever a part of it, not entirely at least.
Returning to nature is of course a figure of speech that the average person uses in reference to hikes, camping, and various out-doorsy activities. Some are more serious about returning to nature, desiring to live in harmony with it, conveniently forgetting that nature does not live in harmony with itself. If man is truly just a glorified animal than we need never wonder at its tendency towards violence; we need only look to nature, at which point everything should become clear. Nature is only cruelty. There are no geriatric animals, except in captivity, and if they die old in the wild it’s only because they managed to kill or evade anything that attacked it. There are no easy deaths in nature.