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FEAR
As a child, I had a reoccurring nightmare—
Trapped in a darkened warehouse
Huddling in a corner
Sinister voices echoing against concrete walls—
“What do we do with her?”
“She knows too much.”—
I watch
Doll parts pass by on conveyor belts—
An arm, a leg, a tiny dress-covered torso—
Before I realize
Not doll parts—human.
Another nightmare—
Running through the long corridors of
Sky Harbor Airport
Brown geometric carpet shapes blurring under my feet
Fleeing—or Chasing—
I run up an impossibly tall flight of stairs only to realize
There is no second floor.
Finally—
Black-clothed men with automatic weapons—
A torrent of bullets in a tiny grocery store—
Shattered jars of pickles littering white tiled floors—
I huddle behind the glass-fronted display counter
With a terrified checkout boy and neatly-stacked bags of rice.
My heart pounds.
Even now, these nightmares stay with me.
But fears change with age and experience
As the world both expands and contracts—
Terrorist attack, global pandemic,
The death of my parents, losing my house,
Early morning car accident on a crowded freeway—
Possibilities too real to entertain in dreams.
Of the two kinds of fears, I know this:
The fantastic visit only at night;
The prosaic show no similar discretion.
