A Collection of Ideas

Melisa's Second Fear

          Fear.

Melisa spun the word around in her mind, savoring each and every sound the letters made. A simole, one syllable word that produced such a potent meaning. She whispered it to herself, anticipating its tase as it rolled off her tongue.

What am I afraid of?

Melisa listed silently all of her petty fears, tiny ants of nuisance that bothered her physically.

Spiders. Needles. Unwanted contact

Then she counted things that she feared in a deeper level. These were the fears which haunted her nightmares and plagied her soul during her countless waking hours. The things that could destroy her psyche by merely being mentioned.

The End. Failure. The Dark.

The dark.

The subtle, barely-there difference between the dark, and The Dark. The dark was simply an absence of physical light, leaving room for the minds of children to avidly create foes, mosters, bogeymen, and other nightmares. The dark was a cover, a blanket of inky invisibility for external nightmares.

Melisa enjoyed the dark. Nothing could calm her more than a pouring downfall of water from above, mixing the darkness of the land with that of the sky. The clear drops making all new again, the sun waiting behind the hill to shine its beams upon humanity and remind them that it will always be there. While the dark could be cover for nightmares, it could also be a blanket for dreams.

The dark.
The Dark.

The Dark was an idea. It was a feeling of an endless void. The Dark was when all Melisa cared for and hoped for would be extinguished like the flame on a holiday votive candle.  The people she loved would be unreachable, distanced from her and unatainable despite any effort of her mind, body, or her spirit.

It was a terror that as hard as she tried to protect, whisper hopes and dreams, love and encouragement, that it would not be enough. That she was futile, fragile,  and defenseless against the void of The Dark.