Word Count: 372
The worst horror of all is not in that instant when you recognize the possibility, nor in the aftermath of the event. It is rather in the slow motion happening, the thousand and one frames that make up the film. Each one building one upon another, each one etched into the mind as it occurs. A real and true horror is a compilation of images that flicker like lightning on the brain.
It starts with the concept, the known dangers. Your toddler stops breathing at night. Or first steps that slip on the sidewalk. Or running out into the street. Each image expands out to the next, like still animation, flipped through with fingers. Each horror lived each time he’s out of your sight until you see him again, safe and whole.
Like that instant you realize he’s slipped out of your hand at the mall. Each moment rises in drama, each possibility rolls out in a story that ends with him taken by strangers, crushed in a door, lost in the crowd and screaming your name. As the seconds click by you think you will burst with the fear, with the heartache, until you spot him ten feet away and the story’s forgotten until next time to happen again.
You think you’re prepared for your teenager’s first solo drive of your car. You know what’s out there, the close calls, the idiot drivers texting, switching lanes, running red lights. You know how many times it’s happened, how many times you’ve escaped. You imagine him down at the end of the street, about to turn onto Main. The traffic, the pulling out into the flow. The hesitation, the experience that he doesn’t have. You imagine the driver intent on not letting him out, or not even seeing him there. The guy in a hurry. The one that t-bones him, blending his body into the seat, mashing his bones into red dust. You see his face screaming, his eyes wide as it happens too fast for him to react.
And this time the movie is full length-longer. A half-hour, an hour past the curfew, till you hear the car in the driveway. Even after the policeman knocks on your door.
