| Letters and Diary Fiction posted April 9, 2024 |
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The worst fear I hold.
The Cold Truth
by K. Olsen
The author has placed a warning on this post for violence.
How can I describe it, such an internal and deeply rooted fear, except to liken it to a slow suffocation? Let me be clear: I do not mean the act of physically losing all access to precious air. I mean the slow, insidious cinch, cinch, cinch of lungs that tell themselves they are not worthy of it. Everyone has their demons, a phrase so obvious and cliché it barely bears repeating, and I know mine by the fangs they drive into my heart as they tighten their grip.
Never quickly, of course, but like an anaconda: I exhale in doubt or shock or grief, any reason will do, and they tighten slowly, adding another coil of anhedonia or restriction. A little inhale, a gasp of connection, but then the inevitable exhale comes and the coils again tighten. That nagging voice like a lancing needle starts to dig in deeper, spreading numbness where it goes: you don’t deserve to exist. Or, what a burden you are to everyone! Look at how you suck the joy out of their life and leave ashes in your wake.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me: a lie we tell children so we don’t have to acknowledge the reality, boggling the mind with the attempt at reality distortion which pops like soap bubbles at our first encounter with cutting syllables.
I’m not afraid of words, for the record. I’m not even really afraid of the anaconda at this point. It runs so much deeper: I am afraid of me. I am afraid of the things that I am capable of when I allow myself to believe the ophidian siren song of the world would be a better place if you were gone.
For some, the thought of death is the most terrible thing they will ever encounter, the existential dread forcing dramatic change. I find it more frightening that in my soul is a portion so enchanted with shuffling off this mortal coil that it seems a preferably permanent solution to so many temporary problems. I dread, like Poe and his raven, the rapping consequence of those thoughts at my chamber door. Yet it is the mundane, ordinary, common nature of the ideation, revolving in my brain like a ceaseless parade of the damned, that makes it dangerous.
I am not afraid of guns. I am afraid of my frightful trigger finger, pointed at myself. I am not afraid of pills. I am afraid of the girl who tried calculating lethal doses in a desperate haze. I am not afraid of sharp things. I am afraid of a single deep cut, from fingertip to elbow, that I have traced in my mind altogether too many times. I am not afraid of cars. I am afraid of the sudden turn at eighty miles an hour because that at least would look like an accident. I am not afraid of food or weight or a reflection, I am afraid of the slow denial of self that ends in my body dropping spent and empty like a cast-off coat.
Because I have missed so many times, but only just. My worst fear is that the next time won’t be a miss.
My Worst Fear Writing Contest contest entry
How can I describe it, such an internal and deeply rooted fear, except to liken it to a slow suffocation? Let me be clear: I do not mean the act of physically losing all access to precious air. I mean the slow, insidious cinch, cinch, cinch of lungs that tell themselves they are not worthy of it. Everyone has their demons, a phrase so obvious and cliché it barely bears repeating, and I know mine by the fangs they drive into my heart as they tighten their grip.
Never quickly, of course, but like an anaconda: I exhale in doubt or shock or grief, any reason will do, and they tighten slowly, adding another coil of anhedonia or restriction. A little inhale, a gasp of connection, but then the inevitable exhale comes and the coils again tighten. That nagging voice like a lancing needle starts to dig in deeper, spreading numbness where it goes: you don’t deserve to exist. Or, what a burden you are to everyone! Look at how you suck the joy out of their life and leave ashes in your wake.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me: a lie we tell children so we don’t have to acknowledge the reality, boggling the mind with the attempt at reality distortion which pops like soap bubbles at our first encounter with cutting syllables.
I’m not afraid of words, for the record. I’m not even really afraid of the anaconda at this point. It runs so much deeper: I am afraid of me. I am afraid of the things that I am capable of when I allow myself to believe the ophidian siren song of the world would be a better place if you were gone.
For some, the thought of death is the most terrible thing they will ever encounter, the existential dread forcing dramatic change. I find it more frightening that in my soul is a portion so enchanted with shuffling off this mortal coil that it seems a preferably permanent solution to so many temporary problems. I dread, like Poe and his raven, the rapping consequence of those thoughts at my chamber door. Yet it is the mundane, ordinary, common nature of the ideation, revolving in my brain like a ceaseless parade of the damned, that makes it dangerous.
I am not afraid of guns. I am afraid of my frightful trigger finger, pointed at myself. I am not afraid of pills. I am afraid of the girl who tried calculating lethal doses in a desperate haze. I am not afraid of sharp things. I am afraid of a single deep cut, from fingertip to elbow, that I have traced in my mind altogether too many times. I am not afraid of cars. I am afraid of the sudden turn at eighty miles an hour because that at least would look like an accident. I am not afraid of food or weight or a reflection, I am afraid of the slow denial of self that ends in my body dropping spent and empty like a cast-off coat.
Because I have missed so many times, but only just. My worst fear is that the next time won’t be a miss.
© Copyright 2024. K. Olsen All rights reserved.
K. Olsen has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.
