My Dinner with Fear

I am afraid.

Fear has wrought its sadistic way into my mind and filled me with unease. I am now uneasy. I used to have Confidence, but Confidence has left me, like a weekend guest. It took its things, its bundle and pack, and it left. I don't know when it will return, if ever. It didn't really say goodbye. Just an over-the-shoulder eye-flick, and that was it.

It left me standing in the doorway, standing alone in my apartment doorway, and that's when Fear decided to swing on by. Fear and Confidence exchanged glances as they passed one another on the lawn. There is no love lost, of that I'm certain. But I didn't invite Fear in, Fear doesn't need an invite. It pushed right passed me. Fear knows its way around.

So, Fear and I dined. It's difficult to have a meal with someone you refuse to look at in the face, but that's exactly what I did. I hoped that if I didn't acknowledge him, he'd leave. I'm naive and that's how I think.

It was a truly horrendous meal, cooked by me, a scared man. One of my worst to date. I was afraid to disappoint Fear with my cooking, so in turn, I overcooked the chicken. It was too dry. Sure enough, Fear didn't enjoy to my half-assed offering.

It used the table cloth to dab its insipid mouth region and then shoved itself away from the table and glided to the sofa. He's smoother than I.

I went to the window and looked outside, hoping, hoping to see Confidence. I didn't.

But Fear knew Confidence was gone. Fear senses things and with that power comes a sense of entitlement. He put his feet up on my coffee table.

I scraped the uneaten, dry chicken in the trash as I watched Fear out of the corner of my eye fidget with the remote. He tapped the buttons exactly the way I tapped them. My pattern. Thumb over the Volume Up button, a quick tap, move downward and across to the Channel Down button, a quick tap, and then up to the Channel Up button, then back down and across to the Volume Down button. That completes the first pass, then Fear moved onto the next pass, which was like the first, criss-crossing, but starting with Volume Down first.

Fear stared at me as he did my pattern on the remote. At least I think he was staring at me, I was still too afraid to look at him. I sunk into the kitchen chair across from him. He owned me and he knew it. Fear had Confidence. How that works, I do not know.

I slumped low, realizing my impending defeat. Fear didn't. He grew. His body ballooned under his clothing as he relished in my collapse. I felt his eyes on me. They were scalding and I started to sweat. I became short of breath. My lungs ached when I breathed in too deep, so I resorted to shallow inhales.

Fear took up my whole couch now as he continued to spread. His fingers enveloped the remote control now, but it didn't matter, he still made the criss-crossing pattern easy enough, his fingers moving forever faster.

I could feel myself fading away. He was going to win and I was going to die. There is no other way.

I am weak.

Fear's shadow fell onto me. It was cold as it wrapped my skin. I started to shiver. He would kill me now. A part of me wanted to die, quite possibly the biggest part.

I slowly raised my eyes to see my opponent fully, he who filled my couch, my room, my apartment, my life. Fear now surrounded me.

As I prepared for him to slaughter me dead, my eyes wandered slowly up his body. He loomed over me like a skyscraper. His head was through my roof and into the clouds now.

I accepted my death. If all Fear has to do is look at me and I'd feel like this, then I am unworthy of this life. Kill me already kill me.

I craned my head to the heavens and I saw his face clearly for the first time.

He had a massive pimple on his forehead.

It was the biggest mound I'd ever seen. His forehead swelled behind it. I squinted to see it more clearly. Yep, it was the biggest fucking pimple I'd ever seen.

I smiled a little. It was actually laughable. I wondered if he knew. I let out a small giggle.

Fear fumed at me. He twisted when he heard my laughter. He shook his head. I laughed some more. Somewhere, in the depths of my broken soul, I found the strength.
The strength to point.

I pointed and laughed at Fear's pimple.

Fear got self-conscious and put it's hands up to its face. It ran it's fingered tendrils over his forehead and felt it.

I laughed harder than I'd ever laughed before. I straightened up in my chair.

Fear began to shrink. Or I began to grow. I couldn't tell. And I didn't care. Our faces were directly across from each other for a split second as I shot skyward and he shrank lower. His face was a horrifically twisted vision of excrement.
I continued to laugh until my head hit the ceiling of my apartment.

I now looked down on Fear, ah shrunken Fear, rubbing his forehead feebly with his tiny bitch hands.

By this time, I had grown to fill the entire kitchen. My shoulders were snug against the window and cupboards. My head angled to the side as it lay flat against the ceiling.

And Fear was diminished. Still laughing, I shuffled over to him on the couch. The remote pinned him down on the cushions. He was no longer doing my pattern on it.

I bent down low to look at Fear in the face. Hollow eye sockets led to an empty room. There was an empty pedestal there in the empty room and the empty pedestal had a plaque underneath it.

The plaque had a name on it, no, the plaque had my name on it.

Fear was going to take my soul and put it on the pedestal in his chest.

I stopped laughing. All was quiet. Except for Fear's whimpering.

I'm going to kill him.

I grabbed Fear and I bit his fucking head off. He cliche'ly tasted like the chicken we had for dinner.

Then, as I was shoving the rest of Fear into my mouth, I heard a knock on the door.

My old friend had returned.