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Watch out behind you!

Little missy always with your head in a book. That’s what your parents always said, isn’t it? Take a moment to see the world around you. All the drama is out there, and some of it might hurt you.

Can’t you see the shadows lurking in the real world? Do you immerse yourself in literature and in television and in movies because there your fears are safe, and the drama is for others? So you are living through it vicariously, but with none of the risks.

But don’t you see? The real world is still out there, and it can get to you when you least expect it. One day, life just sneaks up on you from behind, in all its terrible glory.

I wish you realised. I wish you were prepared. If you knew real fear then you’d maybe know real compassion. But you don’t really have either, do you? Everything in your world is imagined, and real emotion has as little place as reality does with you. So you barely feel for yourself, let alone others. And if you can’t empathise, you can’t understand. You can’t really know others, or the world, only your ideas of them.

So you can’t see them coming.

But watch out behind you, little one! Life has its own plans, and they aren’t yours, and they aren’t what your writers tell you either. And if you aren’t ready, and aren’t looking, one day they will take you down.

So watch out behind you! That’s life there, and it’s not necessarily your friend.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2017