Page 143 - TheRedSon_PrintInterior_430pp_5.5x8.5_9-22-2019_v1

“I demanded the little man tell me what he was. Begging
not to be eaten, he told me he had been a banker, but now
he was just scared. In fact, he was terrified—he still didn’t
understand what had happened to the world.
“That was all I needed—it just clicked. I understood,
finally. I knew why I hadn’t gone insane like everyone
else, and why I was able to eat—I was a leftover from
the old world. I was designed to indulge myself and grow
fat, complacent, and stupid. I was the need to devour the
Darkness—to guzzle molten potential like it was animal
grease. My life—my ordinary, rote little life—was too filled
with ordinariness, you see?
“I was proof against the Darkness.
“And like anything one can’t understand, I wanted to
destroy the Darkness—chew on it, swallow it into my guts
and feel it scream and squirm and die. That’s why I became
blind—the Darkness meant nothing to me.
“I let the little man go. He was useless, after all. He
apparently wasn’t quite ordinary enough to grow an
appetite like mine, and he wasn’t quite imaginative enough
to work within the indoor rollercoaster industry, or even
secure himself a job as an usher within one of the popular
underground movie theaters. Most importantly, when I bit
into him, he tasted awful. He tasted like he would have if I’d
bitten into him before the Darkness. So, off he went.
“The Paperman never did come back to his nest of piled
newspapers, but that hardly bothered me. I was too busy
thinking about what I’d figured out. That’s not to say my
realization shook me at all. Like I said before, it was all just
so much kindling.
“Do you finally see, Family Man? It couldn’t be more
obvious—all things glittering are not always gold. And to
think, you had a mind to admire me. Me!
“I dreamed your dream, little killer. I saw how you
pictured me and my kind. Do you still feel that our dead
eyes are filled with oceans of precious spring rain? And that
146 | Mark Anzalone