We all have the ability to really freak ourselves out over nothing–a wrong number in the middle of the night, strange yet ultimately benign noises in the house, having to repeat routine blood tests, and so on.

Last night I’m reading a detective novel about a serial killer–I’d read it before, back when the Love of My Life was expecting Samwise and was too uncomfortable to sleep in our bed. Which worked out well this one evening. The depiction of the …evil, the insane (literally) depravity had set me on edge. I vividly remember, sitting on my bed not taking my eyes from the page, leaning forward as I read, as if that’d speed things along. It’s incredibly rare for a book to affect me like that, I wasn’t scared–but I was downright close. When I finally finished the book between 4 & 5 am (371 pages of tense prose and tiny type in one sitting), I went out to the living room, confused my wife by giving her a big hug and went to bed to catch a little sleep before work–purposely leaving all the lights on in the room.

So last night, I’m rereading the same book for the first time, and it’s starting to grip in in a similar way–but not as completely as before. About the time that the author really begins to reveal the nature of the killer–later described as “a creature beset by what Coleridge called ‘motiveless malignancy'”–I start remembering that night 8 years ago, details from the end of the book, and so on. This gives me a sort of detachment from the book. And as I realize this detachment’s existence, I feel a bit of relief.

And then, over my headphones comes the lighting strike of Kirk Hammett’s guitar, the staccato thunder of Lars Ulrich’s drums, and James Hetfield’s guttural vocals

Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror

Frak.

I put a finger in the book to hold my place, walked across the room…

and turned on another light.