FEAR

Thirteen Years Old

Anna pushed against the cupboard door. It was locked.

It wasn’t completely dark inside; more like twilight, when the sun has just sunk below the horizon and the world is not so sure of itself. She knew the cupboard well. She was in and out of it several times a week for cleaning appliances, but it was different now – its familiar outlines morphing in the darkness, shadows appearing. She tightened the knot in her cord.

She pushed on the door again. Still locked. Her heart jumped and the darkness of the room was constricting. She couldn’t see so much now – only faint silhouettes – as she pulled the knot harder, but the panic was making her fingers shake. She tried to look at the dark space behind her: Empty. She spun back around: More emptiness.

The fear opened up like a dark hole in which anything might live. It had no edges to it, nothing to hold onto.

Anna began to beat against the door madly, shrieks erupting from her. ‘Let me out! Please let me out! Aunt! Aunt! Oh please!’ She dragged her fingernails down it.

The cupboard was now a darkness that she could not comprehend. The kind of darkness that was alive, with claws and fangs and a gaping mouth. A deep nothingness, threatening to swallow her forever. Anna had dropped the Knotted Cord and could not move to find it. There was an awful sound, strangled by darkness – she realized it was her own moaning.

The door opened and light flooded back in. She gasped at it as though desperately thirsty, crawling out on hands and knees.

‘Pull yourself together,’ said Aunt.

Anna looked back at the cupboard and saw that it was nothing out of the ordinary at all.

‘The more you fear the darker it grows. This should be easy; fear is not a complex emotion. Like darkness is the absence of light, fear is the absence of reason. You merely need to learn how to switch it off.’

But Anna had not felt fear to be like that. Like darkness it had no beginning and no end – it was a circle that surrounded you. It knew exactly what it wanted with the precision of a needle.