I woke up this morning thinking about my favorite horror writers and how they are often inspired by the things that scare them. I believe I thought this because I had a terrible nightmare. I don’t remember what the nightmare was, but I know it felt real at the time and actually concluded before I woke up. I believe I lived. regardless, it made me want to do a short list of…
Things I’m Afraid Of:
- A foreign cat (or other animal) bursting through my doggie door. It happened once before at another house. A black cat tried to get in and it led to an epic cat fight between it and my previous cat. My cat won, but I still had to draw my sword–just in case. Yes, I have a sword. Several, in fact. I suppose I am that guy.
- Being attacked at night. I rarely sleep with the door open. The fear is that there is going to be someone in the house with me and I’ll see their shadow crest my bedroom (or stairwell) doorway before I actually see them. It is that moment of terror, when the shadow tells the coming of the enemy, that I fear more than anything else in that scenario.
- Falling asleep on the road. There is a particular stretch of highway that I drive which makes me sleepy every time I drive it. I believe the issue is psychological. The road is incredibly boring with few twists and turns. It would be so easy to just…
- Already having fallen asleep on the road and being dead now and living a dream before dying. Nobody knows what death is or has any idea about the perception of time prior to shutdown. It could be an eternity. It could be a loop–where we live our lived over and again trying to make different choices or stuck with the same ones, remembering more and more of the choices we made in previous iterations until life becomes groundhog day and you’re stuck living through the same pleasures and pains and never escaping and never having the chance to do more than just wait for it.
- Being alone. I love being alone, probably because it is a choice. But what if it wasn’t. What if nobody did love me or want to spend time with me or want to see me? Then it wouldn’t be a choice. It would be a cell.