Demons

"We stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside of us"

When we are young, we blame the dark, the unknown, the frightful for all of our fears. At night, we close each door, carefully cover our toes with the blanket and keep a guard up for those monsters. We hold on to all the remaining strands of courage, when we have to be brave for someone else. And then? A day comes when we realize that it isn't those monsters that we are afraid of anymore. Then we grow up.

We call it a fair world, we speak about karma, the circle of life, and we are reassured. We think that we have hope, and we cling on to it, ignoring every negative news report and well, we no longer care about the darkness at night. Why? Because, we know that nothing would be darker than the deep seated fear that we now have. Fear of the fellow man, fear of the demon hiding in him, fear of the demon suppressed inside yourself.

If it is a fair world then why is it that a child still hides inside a cold dark room, when his father returns home drunk? Why does a woman find it safer to be left with a lion than to stroll around alone at night?

Consumed by this chaos, this irrevocable fear, the least we can do is lead an honorable life. Fight the injustice when we can, support the wronged and be better people.

We owe it to the world to make an attempt to undo these wrongs, to try to go back to the days when the monsters under the bed were the only fear any person could harbour.