Tipping The Scales

Laurell K Hamilton is one of my all time favorite writers. Not only is her writing intelligently vivid, tender and candid throughout the multitude of delicious pages, the Anita Blake series is completely compelling, sexy, heartrendingly fun, humorous, and poignantly dark. I jumped into the series around the tenth novel, six years ago at the insistence of a friend. For some strange reason, I decided to read just two of them initially (then read the next three chronologically after those sporadically over the years) and didn't go back to the first book until around October of last year. Life was hectic, or I forgot how much I enjoyed them. Something lame like that.

For the same reason Memento is one of my fave movies, revealing all that lead up to the intro I had to the series is one of my mainstays of escape and relaxation lately, and forever more. Anita isn't a fragile little dandelion concerned with the shallow selfishness that being young yields (which is all too common in feminine prose, no offense), she's a vampire hunting necromancer that struggles continually with the right/wrong human/monster side of her life and those in it. She's justified in most all her extreme actions, striving to maintain the strict, yet ever evolving moral code she adheres to while still struggling to accept joy and normalcy outside her job. People who have the moxie to endear typically terrifying creatures, thoughts and occurrences to this satisfying degree are rare.

I was recently in a courthouse (to support a friend in a gnarly child custody case) and the term "justice" seemed awkwardly vacant within those walls, where it should presumably feel the most prevalent. People shuffling to and fro with tense bemusement at the snail's pace of proceedings, stress beleaguering them as plainly as the business casual attire. There was no buzzing of anticipation louder than a dull hum of ebbing legality, no sense of fairness beyond determining the lesser of two evils. I'm not trying to knock the system, I can't imagine having to delegate people's fate on a daily basis. I'm just relating the experience as it seemed to me, I had some time to ponder. Maybe it was the fantasy/reality contrast of that was so jarring.

The group of people on the opposite bench were trying to bully everyone on our side, quite openly (which is what brought them there to begin with, to put it mildly). They lost the case ultimately, with good reason and the victory was celebrated most by the child trapped in the violent storm, so it was a good day. In that moment of dirty looks and side glances, I summoned my inner Anita, as silly as it sounds. I could have spat in their faces, sinking to their level and below. I could have been a braggart when we won, could have held anger in my heart.

Justice is served best when the actions of retribution are confident in what will be. To be and cause more drama, feeds the fires of chaos. Perhaps when the victim in question is satisfied with their daily life after the crime committed, it's a good day for vindication.

The correlation may be far reaching for some, but in my mind, that's the essence of why the novels are so enthralling and resonating, and I didn't realize it until that day. Instead of chucking all humanity in the face of adversity, meld with it. Let the universe sort out retributions fine print, don't write it yourself.

I eagerly wait to see what Anita does in the awaiting chapters I've yet to enjoy...and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, it will be just what I need.