Comments: Watching the news

Back then I had an instinctual ability to ward off evil. I knew, for instance, that if I crossed my pinkies and sang "Mares Eat Oates and Does Eat Oats..." during the last, pitch-dark stretch of the bike ride home from Marney's, the razor-toothed gutter trolls that lived in the drainage ditch couldn't lay a finger on me. Nobody taught me that, I just knew it. And it worked every single time. Just like no one taught me that the thing in the closet couldn'tthe door from the inside, or that direct light, even indirect light from the hall, rendered all stray boogeymen totally powerless.