This evening I stood on the platform of Finsbury Park Tube station, as I always do, with one part of me quietly chuckling away every time I hear the word Cockfosters. And the other focusing on the strategic positioning of my legs. You know, *just* in case someone happens to speed down the platform all elbows, causing me to topple into the path of an oncoming train. It could easily happen – accident or not – couldn’t it?
Then I came home to Neil Gibson's So Easy, an extract from volume five of Twisted Dark. And it made me think that my oh-so-cautious mindset isn't as absurd as I once might've thought.
He highlights how one slight and careless movement, or moment of madness, could easily cause destruction to someone's life and those around it.
How an innocent kitchen knife could suddenly become a murder weapon in the hands of the wrong person. And how we put so much trust in strangers, who could take our lives in an instant through one foul or misjudged turn of a steering wheel.
Everywhere Gregson goes, no matter how 'safe' the situation may seem, sparks off the potential for something sinister to happen. It's unsettling to think that we humans have the ability to harbour such deep and dark thoughts.
When Gregson reveals how much he knows about his psychotherapist's personal life at the end of the story, we find that it's not just physical dangers that can have a detrimental effect on us. It's the power we have to manipulate someone's mind through knowledge; the power to make people go crazy.
As a newbie to the comic world, yet an avid fan of psychological thrillers, So Easy has totally whet my appetite for this dark yet brutally real genre. Gibson highlights the obvious – but with an intriguing and captivating twist.