The future holds the angels of our past morphed into tumor laden daemons as their facades are slowly sanded down by time to reveal the truth which, in the center, is the only thing that holds and all the ugliness of each and every self is allowed to take over until consuming completely the good. Is it the outside world which, in itself, is only comprised of individual inner worlds, corrupts? Or is the very nature of humanity nothing but vile?

To explain: I was in McD last night and watched as an old man came to make weird adults-only-make-these-faces-and-noises-at-babies faces and noises at an 18 month old. He looked positively cranky before going over there. Reasonably pleasant while there until his wife came over at which time this instantaneous and hideous and fleeting look of what can only be described as visceral hatred flit over his face and (whatever she said, I did not hear) he made to leave...distinctly tipping his (what I presume was) coffee and splashing a good bit of it on the baby. The mother tried to re-assure him that it was an accident and not his fault. Why? Trust me, he had intent. Why would you do that to an infant? What the hell man? How miserable is his life and for how long and how do we get stuck in things like that? How does it get to that point? To whom am I that woman? For whom am I that mother concerned for the feelings of another over her own? Towards whom am I that man displacing fear and hate and frustration and mortal dread onto an innocent?

Or maybe he just tripped.

But it bothered me all night and still does. Gramma's theory was that we start out basically good and corrupt ourselves or are corrupted as we get older until we are so thoroughly bereft of anything resembling decency that we die and only on rare occasion are we able to halt the process and even more rarely reverse it. And it seems that it is in those times of greatest hope and promise and trust in something, when it appears that a corner has been turned and there is something to salvage and build upon that the house of cards falls, reminding us that we really are growing up to no good. Wonderfully she maintained that we have the ability to choose, however rarely we excersise it, and she is responsible for one of my stock phrases: you cannot judge the next person against the past fifteen who have screwed you; be a fool, take a chance. But also make sure that you have suture materials and bandaids because the inevitable inevitably comes to pass.

Makes it difficult to leggo sometimes. And even more difficult to not ferociously guard those in one's care. Did not help that I started watching Kids (the movie) when I finaly went to bed.