Love + Mayhem

I told her bedtime stories.

Because only she would listen to me.

Going on and on.

About something that was never there.

Mostly my bedtime stories were original, but sometimes I would lift fantasy from Neil Gaiman or some lines from my favorite movies.

From Neil Gaiman's Sandman, I told her about the evil writer whom kidnapped The Muse was punished by the Prince Of Stories to suffer the endless flow of ideas. The evil writer had to write all his ideas down on the walls with his blood and slowly dying of imploding madness.

I lifted stories from Gaiman's take on the biblical tales, of how the first wife of Adam was Lilith whom bred demons, the second nameless bride was cast off by Adam because he bore witness of her birth in flesh and bones and lastly Eve whom God had to create in the dark of the night while Adam was asleep so that Adam won't be disgusted by the process.

I told her about Liang's story: A tree in love with a mortal which ended in an innocent tragedy.

And most nights, my stories...

Of a suicidal photographer was mesmerized by the accidental picture he took of a female voyeur. And their lives changed forever.

Of a husband having an affair came home shocked to find out his pregnant wife attempted suicide, killing their unborn in the process. And their desperate love rekindled through redemption and mayhem.

Of two young strangers having robbed of their innocence with one being raped and the other whose dear mother committed suicide in front of him, found solace in each other's sorrow.

Of three friends who found out that they were not real people, but entities living inside my head and had to kill me to prevent me from going crazy.

Or that depressed boy who couldn't die and the iron-cast maiden who couldn't cry.

Ludicrously dark and unsuitable for bedtime?

I couldn't help myself. These were the only versions I could cook up.

It was as if I'm a different kind of werewolf, sniffing at the coming of night and sleepiness, I just had to ask her:

'You wanna to hear a story?'

Though it always ended with the world ending, the characters forever destroyed and ruined. But it was always about love. Between two souls. In its most brutal form.

Love to me, sometimes could only be found by destroying each other. Utterly.

That's why love is real and can only afford to be from triumphing over the bruises from the combined demons that existed between two people.