timwburke

I love my country. I wish it had more sense.

###

The movie scene opened on a little neighborhood of beautiful victorian houses.

A flash of lightning revealed a girl bursting from the front door of a house. “Help me!”

She limps from a bleeding slash on her thigh. The rain clung to her fit and slim form, but enough to show she wears a thorough layer of undergarments. She stumbled and fell in the mud. Looked back at the shadow in the doorway. Made her way to the porch of the neighboring house. Forced open the front door. We know she is The Final Girl.

She peered into the dark. “Hello?”

Her voice echoed through the dusty hallway. The furnishings gleamed with wood luster, brass fixtures, and endless affluence.

A hand grasped her shoulder. The Final Girl screamed.

But its only another girl. The resident explained: A plague had swept through the house, killing nine out of ten of the residents.

Did The Final Girl think a hand had made way for her to make her life easier? Did The Final Girl look into the darkness and feel it look back, waiting?
Something had to be here. Something to use to survive. To make it safer than the house she ran from. She stayed.

More Final Girls fled their houses. Fled through storms and shadowy forests. Stumbled onto the porch and pounded on the door.

There are murderers in the forest. Murderers out there in the storm. Some Final Girls tried to reason with the residents and negotiate a refuge. Others were hysterical from their flight and had seen too many in their sleepover parties butchered. Drunk with fear and rage, they killed and chased the residents into the basement. The Final Girls must be sure they are free. They pursued happiness.

In the living room, Final Girls gathered and created a government that knew no one can be trusted. They fought to see who rules, because no one knows the wisdom from suffering more than the one in charge.

They said to each other “Remember when we were chased? Remember when we fought to this place to be safe and dry? Remember how we fought to keep them from taking our lives?”

They knew what its like to be a victim. They crept to other houses to steal and buy other people. The people are forced to labor to make the house stronger. The first residents looked up as the new arrivals clomped and stumbled above them.

The Final Girls in the rec room invented machines to do the work of the stolen people. Those stolen have holidays to celebrate their own survival. They fought to rule and lead with their wisdom.

The house stayed quite safe. Vermin swept away. No one dared peer in the windows. The Final Girls ate well. They exercised. They made weapons from fireplace pokers and baseball bats and kitchen knives. They crept to the houses that they fled. They set those houses ablaze and danced.

“See what we’ve done! See what we can do! See…who else is being chased!”

The Final Girls flew into the woods. Into the houses down far-away streets. They fight to save their friends. They killed the shadowy figures in the forests or down in those basements.

The Final Girls leaned on the boarded windows, fingers splayed, eyes wide and mouths open, listening for the slightest little sound.

###

We will never believe ourselves safe until we stop looking in the shadows calling everything we see a monster. There will never be end credits.