More Things that Inspire Horror Authors

RANDOM TERRORS

Found inside an out of the way place named Blowing Cave in Arkansas. Someone had spray-painted “Planet of Homosapiens” on the cave wall. ???

Looking back at the mouth of the cave, from a hundred yards or so inside. Yes, it was big, and going deeper, away from that light, was scary as hell. You can write the words ‘utter darkness’ and not know what it means until you’re in a cave under the earth and praying to god those batteries are Duracell. You might say that being inside this cave has never quite left me.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Vanishing point deserted walkway in the middle of day in New Orleans. Walk in a store, the streets are bustling. Come out and… Now how scary is that?

Media fed terrors:

SCIENCE As in You Are What You Cook by Michael Pollan, wherein we learn useful tidbits about natural fermentation, the evolution of food preparation by humans and the unnerving fact that 90% (yes, you read that right) of a human body is made up of different types of teeming bacteria, some of it timed to ‘activate’ itself after our bodies have passed their ‘Sell By’ date, or in this case, their ‘Procreate By’ date. Splendid. (Honestly, I’ve always known bacteria is more our friend than our enemy, but the shelf-life business is decidedly annoying. Still, I suppose I can understand the universe’s intent behind this built-in biological failsafe against loiterers. If you’re not actively participating, move along.)

GOVERNMENT Some of the latest data on endangered bee colonies, having to do with farming methods and the practices used (pesticides) that may indeed be causing the problem, is scary as hell. But no, no says the powers that be, who are more interested in keeping big agriculture happy. Never mind all the scary data until it’s concrete, which is all we’ll have left to eat once the bees are gone. One third of the food we eat depends on pollination by bees, so is multiplying your corn yield and making your yard as green as it can be more important than having one third of all future food sources permanently removed from the grocery store?

I’ll say it again: I miss seeing frogs and turtles and butterflies…and bees.