What you need is a point of reference. Something to focus on.
When dancers are doing pirouettes, you can see their head whip around to come back and focus on the same spot. This keeps them from getting dizzy. One thing that astronauts need to get used to is that there is no up or down in space. The human brain has a lot of trouble with that. Pilots who can do barrel roll after barrel roll as long as there is a horizon whipping around in their field of vision will lose it and vomit in panic if faced with basic manouvers in space. They need to pick a star or a planet and use that as a point of reference. It's also like a night light. The room can be pitch black but as long as the child can even slightly see the tiny greenish light low to floor plugged into the wall, the monsters will be kept at bay. As long as there's something to focus on, the human mind can cope with almost anything.
Bad people are made. There is a combination of society, surroundings, upbringing and opportunities that collide to form cruel or generous personalities. Why are the bad people in many films ugly? They have become embittered to the world as a result of being victimized by it. That plus being taught that there is no fairness, cruelty wins, trusting results in pain, and hope is worthless except as leverage makes a person into a sociopathic creature. The moral compass points south. It points down.
The three people standing in front of Mary were bad men. They were very ugly. The expensive suits they were wearing could not cover up the evil. These were men that had to pretend to be normal. The tall one in the middle has a glass eye. The one on the right hunched and constantly looked side to side for witnesses in a habitual tic. At least they were smiling. It was the third one that made Mary really scared. He looked directly at her with a dead face. His ugliness came almost entirely from the fact that he looked switched off. There was no emotion playing across his craggy features. He didn't blink.
The restaurant was closed. She had locked the doors. She was the only person there. They had come out of the shadows and into the light like butterfly wings stretching out, drying, becoming what they were meant to be. Three men threatening one woman in the dark.
This wasn't the first time. This was a bad part of town and she was pretty. She didn't recognize these ones. They stepped towards her. She grabbed a knife. They laughed. They kept walking towards her. It was an acient dance as old as predators. As old as the food chain.
Later, lying on the counter and tasting blood, she concentrated on the light on the coffee machine with all of her ability.
Bad people are made.
As long as there's something to focus on, the human mind can cope with almost anything.
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