My Light

Excellence Award in the 'The Write Track 2015' competition

I felt strangled. The air compressed from my lungs, a lump lodged firmly in my throat, I could not breathe. Darkness weighed heavily upon my shoulders, pressing my arms tightly into my sides and digging its grimy nails deep into my skin.
The only thing that lit my path was the door set high in the black, outlined in clinical white light, glinting off the icy steel doorknob. My face formed a flinch as a hand materialized and grasped the handle between its pasty fingers. Then I realised – the hand belonged to my arm; it was mine.
I don’t remember that day as clearly as I should – mainly, it just appeared to me in a blur of light and that door. Always the door. The entryway into what I believed would be the worst day in my existence; past, present and future.
Fear of the worst kind tensed my posture into some rigid, plaid stance that didn’t come to me as a natural thing. Still, I had to get through that door – my fingers remained immobile, frozen against the chilly bite of metal against my skin.
And then I did it. I twisted the handle and gave the door a nudge so gentle I doubt it could have ruffled a leaf. Still, the entry swung on its hinges, wordless and smooth, soundless and oily – confirming my worst fears. I cringed away from the light that pooled in my patch of darkness, the outline of a doorjamb clearly sketched. But, as always, curiosity won over anxiety. Guts over fear, as they say. I peered through the inkiness surrounding me, right into the room opposing my little patch of pessimism. And I saw many things.
I saw a square space, yellow light illuminating every crevice, every corner; I saw a reclining chair, lined in hardened plasticised cushions; I saw a woman with a soft, gentle face and thick brown hair, pulled back in a tight high ponytail. I saw many things but fear was not one of them – was not allowed in that sunny space.
Slowly, I walked towards the chair, trying hard to ignore the woman’s kind, but rather…fake smile? No, more…robotic. An automatic reaction to the people that walk through her door. But the light already surrounds me – light pouring in from a window that overlooked an overly cheerful yet still real looking garden, the setting sun low over the hills. My fear, my anxiety, my irrationality, it dissolved in a sticky mess of useless emotions. Poured down a drain with an endless pipe.
The woman, her smile widening, becoming more real with every passing moment gestures to the chair and I step towards. I needn’t be afraid of something that is worthy of my fear – because my darkness is gone, swept away with an invisible wind. I settled ino the chair, smiling for so very many reasons.
I smile, because I know. I know, for certain, that everything is going to be alright. Even if it is the dentist.

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