Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

by Neil Gaiman

And what we learn about ourselves in those moments, where the trigger has been squeezed, is this: the past is not dead.

Secure your own mask before helping others. And I think of us, all the people, and the masks we wear, the masks we hide behind and the masks that reveal. I imagine people pretending to be what they truly are, and discovering that other people are so much more and so much less than they imagined themselves to be or present themselves as. And then, I think about the need to help others, and how we mask ourselves to do it, and how unmasking makes us vulnerable . . . We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting.

The truth is a cave in the black mountains. There is one way there, and one only, and that way is treacherous and hard, and if you choose the wrong path you will die alone, on the mountainside.”

You strike me as a kind person. I hope your world is kind. By which I mean, I’ve heard we see the world not as it is but as we are. A saint sees a world of saints, a killer sees only murderers and victims.

Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative, or so we presume, for nobody returns to dispute it.