Fear Story

I lost the comp, so I thought I'd post it here

***
I lie in darkness and I fear to rise lest fingers grab my feet to pull me underneath. I, even, fear to think of what makes me afraid as it may summon it to my side.

It started on the bus. The man I sat beside watched the grey sky passing by. The fields rose to crash against those clouds. And, at its apex, the blades of grass tilted towards the bus that went under its domain. As he stared, I stared at him, and wondered what went on in there. Did he think I was rude when I asked him to shift over? Did he want me to speak to him? Did his emotions swirl in red hot magma as this imagined slight nettled deeper into him. Did he now think of me in his bed, skinless before the new-born dead?

AS I stepped off the bus, the weeds brushed their bulbs against my skin. Up above, the grey heavens loomed with me as its centrepiece. The sky started at buildings cracked and bleached, going up and up, as if drawing breath, until it met the hills and ceased to be. Gradations of light marked that ascent as it flowered to its towerin’ centre. That height began to bow inwards. I watched it shudder for a moment as if to snap asunder. The sky would fall to the earth then, and would let in something that will never leave again.

When I walked home the dogs barked at the empty air behind my feet. Ravens cried out as they flew in aimless circles and the buildings appeared a breath away, the fields an inch, and the sky close enough to touch my throat. That is except the highest point that hung like fragile ice. The air held its breath as it waited for a blade that it wished would finally, oh, at long last, cut the clouds from its neck. Even though, I do not see another soul, judging eyes watch me from windows that reflect the clouds.

My teeth ache as I brush them for the upteempth time. The shouts from the house reverberate along the wall until it cracks the glass. The cracks that spread disfigure my face, bleeds black tar into my visage and throbs with the depth of its darkness. I get dressed for bed and the dusty covers swallow me up.

Sleep hangs out of reach. As I toss, and I turn, the dust rises in plumes of ash. Could this be tainted by the lack of cleaning? Will it fill an open cut with a plague of ebola? My heart seizes at the thought. The little trembles of digestion are like my insides seizing and rendering their own flesh. Drying skin beside my nose makes me fear of leprosy. The aching in my mouth grows when I clash them together to keep my anxiety in. Even then, it makes me fear than an abscess rots my teeth from within’ to explode out and spew out red-soaked bones into the air.

As I lay, a fancy, or should I say another fear among the innumerable, takes unto me. What if that man had murder in his soul? What if his breath now frosted my windowpane?

My mind wanders in a maelstrom that sucks all thoughts into it. Faster and faster my imagination grows until it fills me up with dying cells. The bed slips down, the walls close in, and the ceiling pinpricks the sky. I begin to tilt at an angle that causes me to grip the bed with white knuckled mania. Upside down , right side up, all around, I see the corners of the wall begin to yawn. The darkness within appears without a top or bottom, and I turn my eyes away from that sight. My thoughts conjure a swarthy face that would seep into the crack. Its eyes would be as big as my fist and its long fingered hands will tear this world open.

I feat to think of that man, lest I summon him from the depths. I imagine him now. Burnished in copper sunlight. Separated by miles, and miles, and miles, and tonnes of steel and concrete, that sweats rivulets down its flesh, separating me from him. But the foliage of crisscrossed steel will give way to show his beetle black eyes. He would turn and all the walls would crumble until his eyes met mine.

As I lie there, unable to move due to an author’s fancy, I feel as if a blade is already inching through my spine.