Fear!!!

Fear has a stilling sound, like when dad and mum left her alone at home on a windless night, when nothing stirred. She felt it now, trapped on the 6th floor in a flat with lovely windows that had been thrown open, regardless of the mosquitoes, but still felt claustrophobic with the crush of imaginary possibilities.

Fear smelt of singed feathers, like when the pigeon had been caught in the air-conditioning. She smelt it now even though her flat had no air conditioning. She smelt it and felt her hair to see if she had somehow set it on fire, while sitting here in the dark, next to the candle, waiting for the power to come back on.

The touch of fear was familiar yet unsolicited. Like the obese stranger with lecherous eyes sighing with longing against her neck in a crowded bus. She could feel that unwelcome touch gently but surely raising the hair on her arms now.

Fear tasted like blood, sudden and taboo. You never expected to encounter the taste, but it made itself known on your tongue and you wondered if in acknowledging the taste, you had branded yourself anomalous. She tasted that forbidden flavor as her eyes adjusted to the dark and she watched, unblinking, the seconds hand on her bedside clock jerking silently on invisible strings.

Fear felt like the heavy, sodden shame of self-soiled clothes. It was the result of an instinctual reaction to threatening stimuli — inevitable, but no less disgusting and never to be spoken about, except in casual slang that lacked the benefit of true experience. She felt its weight choking her like her scarf wrapped around her neck and tugged simultaneously in opposite directions by the surging masses in the train.

Fear looked like the image that rippled across her eyelids just before sleep came. If she had more time, she’d probably recognize it and name it, but always, always, the healing oblivion of sleep chased away that dark image. But now, her eyes were wide open, the eyelids with their images drawn away like the curtains on the rod behind her, and yet she saw.

No books, no TV, no music, no sleep, no company, no distractions, just a weak candle. While with a silent drum roll, all her formless thoughts shrugged off the debris of their quick unceremonious burial, gathered their sensory arsenal, and marched forward, towards her…