Worst Fear
I’m back in my childhood’s home
in its dank and dismal cellar
walking warily, unsteadily down
ancient
narrow
stairs.
The old-time wash machine with wringer
stands there in the center of the gloom
as I remember well it always used to.
Above me is the hanging bulb
with my late step-dad’s makeshift switch
which once I was electrocuted by (strange current went surging
from my fingers to the middle of my arm).
My eyes are just beginning to adjust.
But still it is so black.
Something’s in this room with me.
I sense, I do not see malignancy -
It’s omniscient; omnipresent
and pressing onto me.
A bat is fluttering eerily;
I know this, and yet I cannot see its wheeling frantic wings.
I make my way
so slowly to the bulb
suspended from the low and cobwebbed ceiling.
Reaching out I grasp the switch,
and a face appears suddenly before me.
Fear washes over my entire being. . .
Satan has me!
(This was, in fact, a nightmare, the worst I ever had. Nothing else ever came close!)
Copyright © Andrea Dietrich | Year Posted 2010
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