Are you afraid of the dark?
It may sound as the beginning of a child’s tale, but it is just another part of this story. After reading all of these chapters, I suppose you already have a notion of the type of person I am and of my personality itself. I like to think of myself as a badass, fearless and defiant to everything and everyone. I enjoy the idea that I can overcome many issues and that I see the world in a way that no one else does. I see myself as unique and incomparable. I’ve always despised the idea of being a commoner, someone relatable to and “normal”. I needed to stand out, shine brighter, and I managed to do so. Many times I heard from people that this is what they saw on me and it felt good. Little they knew that deep inside, we were fighting something that most see as silly, but that for us has always been a synonym of danger: darkness.
I know it sounds like I am talking in riddles or even making a mystery, but it isn’t the case this time. It is a true fear of the dark and we carry it with us for as long as I can remember. I cannot say exactly how long has she carried it for, but as for me, darkness reminds me of the day I was born. You see, we haven’t yet talked about the day of my birth and that is something I still need some time to talk about. Have a little more patience, it will come. As for now, let me tell you this.
The fear of the darkness is entangled within me. It goes from literal to figurative and it makes me shiver from the tip of my toes to the edge of my hair foils. I cannot stand outside in the open when it’s dark, I cannot stand inside with the curtains open and the windows reflecting the inside, when it is dark from outside. I cannot lay down in bed with my eyes open and the lights off, and I would rather starve inside should all my food be laying outside in the dark for any reason. Noises in the dark make me panic, shadows give me chills. These things bring me into complete state of shock and alert. For us, darkness is the house of dangers and danger always appeared as soon as I could no longer see what was out there. They were always watching from outside the window, waiting until the brightness was gone, craving to hear the deep breathe of the sleepers so they could strike. Burglars, perverts, liars. Their presence was constant and there were no barriers to keep them out.
Before I was born, and yet as a very young kid, the darkness in her room was filled with shining images stuffed animals and little glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling that helped her to get the best of dreams. By then, darkness was as it should be: just our place on Earth facing the opposite side of the sun. It was a reason to play catch with the cousins and to stare at the sky at the farm, filled with glowing infinite stars that could only be seen there, so far away from city lights. It did not harm, it did not bring sadness. Before my birth, darkness was still light.
As time goes by, it is still hard to get used to it. I chose to be somewhere else, far away from the dangers that haunted me in the darkness of the South, but it ain’t as easy. Here, the dark is again the same as when she lived without me. It is safer. Many times I wish I could snap my fingers and change it, take it easier and breathe deeper so it will go away, but it simply doesn’t. At the first sight of sunset, curtains are closed and doors are locked and checked twice. No efforts are spared to make sure I am safe and that nothing and no-one will come from it.
It is strange how people play with what they do not understand. Countless times, we have been joked at because of this fear and with the jokes it came a huge lack of confirmation that it will all be okay. It was and still is tiring but also necessary to make sure that I can sleep tight instead of lying awake. “You need to take it easier”, I hear, “don’t be ridiculous, there’s nothing out there”, they say. So much for their own amusement and so little for understanding and seeing my feelings. I get it, it is perhaps childish for a grown up woman to fear de dark, but so many years of fear cannot disappear with the snap of your fingers. Shouldn’t it simply be treated as any other flaw? So far, I have never crossed anyone who was fully able to comprehend and respect it, instead, they decided to play with my weakness and that has always been really hard to take. They make it sound like paranoia or childish behaviour, but what they don’t know is how deep it is all actually buried inside my mind.
Everything is vivid and bright in our mind and soul. No one has lived what we have, no one has seen what we’ve seen. The dark brought us the hot iron that burned our peace and destroyed our ease. We felt in our skin the dangers of the darkness and for that and for more, we crave for those faces to forever go away.
