Chasing the Boogeyman

by Richard Chizmar

Maybe that’s what grieving is all about: never forgetting what we’ve lost.

Standing there in that frozen moment of space and time, I realized how vast the world around me really was and that one day soon I’d be leaving this place I’d always called home, to venture out on my own. My friends would also be scattered to the four winds, and some I would never see or talk to again. Our parents and brothers and sisters would grow old and eventually we’d have to say goodbye to them, too. Nothing would ever be the same.

I filled my days and nights with stories and novels and movies that peered into the deep, dark wells of human evil.

This is what you do when you have a family. You get up when it’s still dark outside and you go to work so the people you love can have a better life. Even when you’re sick or tired and don’t want to.