Simon Critchell

The temptation when you sit down to write one of these bio things is to delve into the past, treat it like a CV. How old am I? Where was I born? What else have I written?

I like to think I am an interesting person, I’ve lived, loved, had my heart broken. I’ve held interesting jobs, cheated death on more than one occasion. But that is probably not what you want to know, you are wondering why I write the kind of books I write.

Empathy.

It can be summed up with that one single word.

You see, when I read about monstrous people wreaking unimaginable suffering on human beings, I live through that ordeal, I feel the terror and agony, I am right there seeing the face of the beast, soaking up the unfathomable evil. I suffer the terror.

I’ve been through phases where I’ve feasted on information about these creatures who hide amongst us. Not just a morbid curiosity, its more than that.

For a long time I was very perplexed by the ability of one human to be so malevolent. It is the same with cruelty to animals. What makes another person capable of relishing the violent suffering that is so abhorrent to me? It made no sense. It disturbs me when things do that. I need to understand.

I’ve spent some periods of my life in West and Central Africa, and know that animals are treated there with a completely different regard to the way I would treat them. It isn’t so much that pain and suffering is enjoyed, it just does not matter. I was only 23 when I drove past a cow just starting to be butchered by the side of the road, and found the whole thing very disturbing. You don’t want to be beef cattle in the Congo, trust me!

How can a person, or a race, have such a different level of empathy to me? How can a man like Gary Ridgeway snuff the life out of so many teenage and twenty-year old girls with his bare hands? It is an alien ability to me. At least it is not something I could possibly do myself.

But,

I have been exposed to enough differently wired people that I am able to understand the functionality of these disconnected minds. I can’t put myself in their shoes and want what they want, but I can project myself into their minds and live and think through that dysfunction. Once I know, for example, what Gary Ridgeway’s mind is like, I can experience his actions through his eyes. Of course, the experience of the victim is an easier, albeit more uncomfortable, connection to make.

The ability to mentally live through these horrific crimes hammers home how diabolical they are, and how wrong the people who can commit them are.

So, yes, I could have told you about my dog, or my kids. I could have regaled you with details about how long I have been writing, or how my farts don’t stink. Instead I thought I would let you peek through the window into a mind capable of creating the disturbing and challenging darkness that is 21:24 (published by Stitched Smile Publications) and other disturbing stories!