Regina Richards’s Reviews > At Dark, I Become Loathsome > Status Update

Something in particular catches my eye, and I find myself drawing closer to one was as if summoned. Letters painted there read “All thus happiness makes me sad.”

“Thats a thing people don’t talk about enough—that there are people who will judge even the way you mourn your loved ones.”

“That you’re only as decent as unusable goods.”

“That’s something I think about often: how people around you change when you lose a loved one. The manner in which they refer to you, the gentler way in which they approach you as if you might rip apart under the slightest pressure. Their courteousness comes from a place of goodwill and sympathy; however, it only reaffirms the fact that you’re different, that you’re marked with something irreversible

She hands me the paper. I shine my flashlight on the sheet and find there’s not much written, just a few lines of chicken scratch.

“In 2015, I lost the only thing that really mattered to me: my daughter. I suppose the only thing i have left to offer somebody is my heart—the very thing that continues to beat and keep me alive. I give my heart to you.”

“I think of the blood they found, which must have once belonged to him. I imagine it pulsing beneath me like a gentle current, carrying me off toward a godless infinity where starlight is eaten by the fanged monstrosities we build inside our minds.”

“But though humanity doesn’t escape us when it’s dark out, I’ve learned that human decency only exists when it’s convenient.”