this probably wont make sense if you're not familiar with IT by Stephen King.
The Phenomenon of IT
My city rests firmly in the clutches of it. We are its playground, we trample on its land, this is no longer ours. It was never ours. The soil I stand on was colonized by it, picket fenced lawns groomed by it, the infrastructure of roads I drove on aimlessly when I was too scared to stop moving built by it. The scent of fear hangs around my home like the blanket my mother wrapped me in when I cried as a baby - soft, and present, and warm, and most of all, familiar.
Fear is so potent in the air it is our new form of pollution. No more concern about the air quality, the smog in our lungs that blow up from the annual forest fires have nothing on the thick waves of tangible fear that envelop us. I can barely breathe through the scent of it, and it leaves me dry heaving in the middle of the night, alone and scared on my bathroom floor.
It comes to me in those moments, when all the roads seem to lead back home, an impossible paradox of never-ending freeway turnarounds, driving for hours without going anywhere. It comes to me when I am hyperventilating on the cold tile, lungs and body fighting to defend myself against an entirely imaginary threat. It sits under the bridge at the end of town, and it waits for me to meet it, as I always do, ready to feed upon my fear so thick and palpable that it could be sliced and served on a silver platter. I meet it face to face, and I fall, trapped within my own timeline, running through the same story over and over again.
***
They say that literature lives, that you never use past tense when talking about novels because we regard stories as never ending, never starting, always existing, as an aside of our own universe. Trapped in these pockets of fiction, every instant of every novel exists at the exact same infinity that makes any book we read, any English essays we write in a perpetual present tense. Believe me, an infinite existence isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Every moment of time that passes is both fleeting and lingering, every first step using the coffee table to prop myself up, first word, a mumble of a call to my father, every first Sunday church where I am condemned to an eternity of pain, first cigarette behind a 7/11 with a guy I don't know at all, first kiss, behind that same 7/11, blowing rings into one another like a promise of eternity that we cannot afford to cement, first time, barely not behind that same 7/11, first love, potent and familiar as the fear lingering in this town, it all blends with every last step off the bridge at the end of town, last word, a name on my tongue, a plea for help, last visit to church, last cigarette behind a 7/11, last kiss in front of the town fair, last time, last love, last hope of leaving this place, last moments, and somehow they all come to a surprise to me, even though I know how my story ends. I know enough of my own history to be able to analyze it for metaphors and similes and figurative language, hell I could write a test on the events of my story, but i do not know enough for it to stop hurting. Each time I agree to leave this town, I can't help but feel hopeful that maybe this time the ending will have magically been altered, and suddenly I'll be able to drive out of town and into a new life. I can't help but nod, smiling, when he suggests that we go, and I know he's so desperate to get out, only sticking around because of my fondness for home. I know if I had agreed sooner, or we had skipped the carnival, or if I hadn't been curious enough to peek around the corner of the gas station this entire thing would never have happened. But I can't help but face the reality that this is how my life exists, this is how my world lives, in a pocket of fiction.
It sits, and it waits for me, tossed over the bridge, and it smiles at me, feeling the fear ride off of me as if the smoke of my first attempted rings blown in the darkness of the night at a time when I wasn't scared. And each instant, I am trapped in this fear, terrified of what I know is going to happen. I know how this story ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. There is a brief moment of peace, as the glowing eyes of my monster remind me of the glowing open sign of a 7/11 illuminating the face of the person I almost ran away with, like some star-crossed lovers in an 80s film, transfixed upon each other. It feeds off of fear, and though I'd love to say that there exists some life where this peace and love saved me, I am living every moment of my life, and there is no version where that happens. I am mauled to death by a monster in the exposition of a novel that everyone has an opinion of.
I think the scariest part of this whole ordeal is that time after time, I see his face, bright and hopeful as I say I will leave with him, and I still hope that we can walk out of the town fair and out of town, safely.
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