Did you really see what you thought you saw? How is it that you can see so plainly what others can not? Oh, the frustration you feel when you try to get others to see it too. It’s like being in a Lifetime movie where you can see the villain and everybody thinks you’re crazy…or jealous.
It’s not always clear when it happened, when your eyes came open. All you know is the truth is right there plain as day. You can see the wolf baring its teeth, the lion stalking its prey. You can see their intentions in their eyes and you can see the poison on their fangs. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t get others to see it too.
Amid the rebuke of others you may doubt yourself. Maybe I’m wrong, you reason, searching yourself. You may even try to talk yourself out of what you’re seeing and try to see things everybody else’s way. You try to give the benefit of the doubt. But it’s still there—the truth. He (or she) is not who he claims to be. He is saying and doing all the right things and yet it’s off somehow.
You are not crazy. You have seen the face of perfect evil.
*****
Grotesque images come to mind when you hear the word evil. Instinctively you may think of demons with nightmarish faces; bad people doing bad things in horrifying ways. Seldom do you think of evil as soft-spoken and beautiful.
- Perfect evil has the ability to look like a duck and quack like one.
- It can appear to be a good tree with a healthy canopy.
But no evil can produce anything outside its nature.
- It may appear to be a duck, but it cannot lay duck eggs.
- It may appear to be a good tree, but it cannot bear good fruit (although it may appear to be good at first).
Understand, evil has many faces and it’s more about what it does than what it looks like. To identify evil, you must understand its nature.
Evil is what evil does.
- It is the source of death and destruction.
- It’s pleasure is in others’ pain.
- It is the master of disguise
You could easily identify it if it wasn’t wearing a mask, but perfect evil is not content to remain unmasked. It loves its costumes.
Perfect evil is not perfect because it openly commits shocking atrocities. It is perfect because it doesn’t. Perfect evil is the ability to steal, kill, and destroy lives while appearing to give, restore and build them.
*****
To your horror and confusion, you may have discovered perfect evil in someone close to you. It could be a family member, your best friend, even your spouse. The reasons for their ill intentions could range from jealousy to mental imbalance. You may never understand why. But you must be careful not to deny what you see when you see it.
And more importantly, you must have the courage to act. The truth changes everything. You can’t go on and pretend like everything is okay when you know it is not. Don’t dismiss it or ignore it. Go with your gut and do what you must—even if all you can do at the moment is pray (there is power in prayer). It could save your life… or someone else’s.
— D.L. Lunsford
D.L. Lunsford's Flight of the Butterfly 