An Untitled Snippet

I was noodling around with the opening to a horror story and at about half a page in it had become another story about Three-Finger Finnegan.

His world doesn't really have "monsters under the bed" tales in it, so these paragraphs didn't work for the story I suddenly found myself telling.

These few paragraphs aren't half-bad so I decided to preserve them here.

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  Most days it's impossible to tell the world the truth.  Some days you lie to yourself.  There are a few days, a few precious, hopeful days when you can look your reflection in the mirror, right in the fucking eye and tell yourself the straight out, unvarnished truth.  The trick then, is knowing when those days are upon you and knowing when to hide from mirrors.

  I'm won't to bore you with the mundane.  It's enough for our purposes to tell you that I know two truths about myself. I know them right down in my bones, in that place where you keep all the things you hope you'll never let yourself know.  I'm a liar and a coward.

  What man will say these things about himself?  What man can keep these two truths about himself right there in the front of his mind without skulking away from the world to hide in darkness away from decent, loving, normal people?  Not me.  I want to hide away every second of every day.  Turn my face, cast my eyes down, and pray no one notices.  But I can't.

  You want to know why?

  'Cause I'm afraid of what's in the dark even more.

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