The Fear

The fear is a caged beast, it hibernates at the best of times, warm and snug in its cozy den, buried deeply so that it is out of sight, and thus out of mind. At unfortunate times it wakes, ravenous and voracious, and its hunger seemed insatiable.

It opens its black mouth; putrid, malodorous. The fear swallows all. It swallows the fragile hope, who is desperately clinging for dear life to the edge of consciousness. It swallows warmth, laughter, glee and tramples over the rainbows, until they lie on the ground, barely alive, like butterflies with broken wings.

The world is dark again, for the beast has drowned the sun. The sun lies at the bottom of the ocean, grey and bloated, and the fish consume its flesh. At night, the beast drain the moon of her flux of silver and drink the elixir; emerging more pernicious and malevolent as ever. It is starving, and it cannot stop.

There are screams everywhere. The earth vibrates with the screaming. It subdues the fear for a while, but it immunes itself against it. It feeds on the screams, sucking and sucking the waves of voices until there is silence. I claw at my face like the man in Edvard Munch's Skrik, eyes wide as saucers, mouth a perfect 'O' and no sound issues forth. I am locked in time, screaming and scratching and forever silenced. 

The beast does not feel remorseful; it does not feel the rage as it tear apart the lakes, nor does it feel the euphoria that is often acquainted with insanity, at the carnage it has committed. It is what it is – a beast. And it feels nothing.