Fear

• Phoebe Lee, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2016

Unaware, it was his escape from the agony of life. His pain was an ocean of unknowable depths, swift currents and lurking beasts. The words splintered inside him, like piercing needles. Not knowing what will become of him, he tells her his inmost secrets. waiting for her to talk, thoughts drowned him in mounds of pain.

Towers of trepidation built up throughout his numb body. Fearing his life, fearing the worst, fearing everything, fearing nothing. The tension plummets down, from head to toe, now he is just filled with panic, fear, everything, nothing.

Lost, found, fear, heroism, silence, noise, everything, nothing. Fear is an illusion, but not an amusing, one brought about by a conjuring trick. Fear locks onto what you love most and makes you terrified of loss of Love. It taunts you that the harder you love now, the more pain and trauma will be there later on. It cuts us off from love.

In this state of fear we are easy prey to hate, greed, anger, loneliness, and despair. Fear is shackles, fear is a knife in the gut slowly twisted, fear is a constant hammer on the head. Yet fear also evaporates, like water under an early summer sun. When fear comes, walk with confidence right past, because like the ghosts of children's nightmares, fear is an illusion.

It is a matter that holds no true form, it weaved into the heart of him. A formless matter trapped in a cage made of thin wood, bathed in blood and pure adrenaline. When no creature stirred, and the winds stopped its forest maze. The matter held a conscience that knocked on the cage doors begging for release.

The fear sits quietly, eroding the person he was born to be. What starts as a contortion of his stomach, becomes a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand. His breathing becomes erratic, deep, then shallow. He fights it; He fights the feelings, as his body writhes to be free or shut down entirely. Each time this happens, part of him gets stronger, learning how to cope, part of him weakens.

Against it, he fights the fear of never trying, of failing through his every move. This is how he keeps moving forward, why others think him brave. He’s not. He just knows how to push through fear better than the others.

He knows how. He knows why. He doesn’t hide in the shadows, he fights the pain, the agony, the bare lies of life, and the secrets he kept from himself. She doesn’t know how. She doesn’t know why. She hides in the shadows, she can’t fight the pain, the agony, the bare lies of life, and the secrets she kept from herself. Fear is just a conjuring illusion.