The Heart of Darkness (It’s In My Head)

It’s scary what goes through my mind at 30,000 feet…

‘If someone just wrenched open that door handle we’d all go flying out, ripped from our seatbelts, and sucked through the cabin, starting with that smug bloke spreading his legs out in the exit row.’

and…

‘Gee that suction in the toilet cubicle is strong. Wonder if it could vacuum out a small child?’

and… Well, you get the picture.

Don’t be alarmed or worried for my mental health. I think these thoughts quite calmly, while sipping my G&T on a Qantas fiight to Singapore (where I’m headed for work). I am not perturbed by the dark images that flitter through my imagination, I just accept them—like you might a distracting throught during meditation—and let them go, as I happily glance around.

This is the way my mind works. Always has. I’m a glass-half-empty, every-cloud-has-a-storm-behind-it kind of person, and that’s what drives my writing. It’s why I became a crime writer in the first place. Makes sense right?

But it’s not all doom and gloom. My (wise-beyond-her-years) niece said to me just before I left, in fact, “Maybe you love mysteries, Aunty Christina, because they get solved, so you’re actually being really, like, positive and stuff.”

She’s right. I might revel in the dark, but it’s the fact that I’m shining light on those shadowy corners that really inspires me. It’s not the crime that I like. It’s the justice that comes for the victim, the answers that come for the family, the order that is restored to the world. And, in the case of the exit door, it’s also about the most positive aspect of all—survival. Because after each such thought, I usually go to solutions, like:

‘Okay, if that happened, I’d scream out to the bloke to grab hold of his seatbelt, wrap it around his wrist and hold on for dear life.’

And how positive is that?

What about you? As a crime reader, do you also have a dark imagination? Or are you fiercely positive and just happen to stray into dark territory from time to time? If you particularly love cozy crime like me, I tend to believe the answer is the latter, but I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Are you a naturally dark soul and if so, why? Or is light and positivity your preference? And if so, why do you read crime?

Pop a comment here or jot me an email and let me know.

Until then, happy (sinister) reading everyone.

xo Christina