Childhood Fears

I was a simple child, lived in Klang for two years before I got my first asthma attack, forcing my family to move to my dad's hometown in Kota Bahru, Kelantan where i would be safe from contaminated air. There I spent my days lying on the floor or watching my grandmother expertly push a needle through pieces of fabric to create a beautiful garment or watch her talk to her friends in the unique Kelantanese slang that until today I can barely grasp. It was not like I feared many things besides the prospect of a cane coming into contact with my skin but seeing as I am unable to fill up a whole essay just typing about my hatred for those canes I have no choice but to reach deep down to access my fears, so I will tell a few tales of fear from my childhood.                              

One of my fears used to be of dolls, and no, not those overly superficial barbie dolls that are a girl's dream toy at Christmas, but those dolls that had babyish features, the ones with pale white skin, straight midnight black hair and giant eyes that close when you place them lying down. This fear began when I received one of these dolls from an aunt, it was a beautiful doll with ghostly white skin, shoulder length straight hair and big brown eyes, dressed in a plain blue kimono. Being the good girl I was, I accepted the doll gratefully and played with it till I had to sleep. I put the doll on a shelf opposite my bed and shut my eyes. I realized I couldn't sleep with the doll staring at me so I put it into a cupboard and shut my eyes again. Not long after that, I woke up with the creepy feeling of being watched and looked around in the dark room, only to see the moonlight casting a soft glow on the doll through the window. Perhaps it was just my over-imaginative mind playing tricks on me, because I saw the eyes of the doll staring straight at me, with its smile forever etched on its face, it looked really evil and the fact that it was out of the cupboard creeped me out a lot more. I threw a pillow at it so that it fell to the floor and went back to sleep. In the morning, I saw its overly happy face staring straight into my eyes. Needless to say, I screamed and jumped off my bed and ran straight into my parents' room crying about an evil doll that wanted to make me its slave.

Next, for awhile, I was very afraid of small holes, like the kind you find on sponges or rotting wood. I could not understand why, but one day, as I was helping my mother wash the dishes, I looked at the sponge, as I stared at the innocent looking holes, I felt goosebumps and felt a shiver run up my spine. It wasn't like I imagines little things in there that were waiting to take over the world, no it was more like, I was scared because I couldn't imagine anything. The little holes were like gateways to the unknown, things I'd never seen before or even thought about, all the endless possibilities that could emerge from the little holes, all because I could not thing of them.

Lastly, I was always afraid of the dark. It wasn't like I saw anything in the dark, but more like my mind would just come up with the worst scenario suddenly and I'd end up scaring myself. The fact that one could never be sure of what you would find in the dark made this situation even worse for me. It was normal to see me scurrying to my parent's room after scaring the soul out of myself and taking comfort in the warmth they provided me. I would put up a brave front for my siblings when they asked me to accompany them to the bathroom, but the wait that would last about 3 minutes or so, I would have imagined how a robber or murderer would break int the house at that very moment just to kill me, or how the creeping darkness would extend its claws to grab me and drag me past the point of no return.

As you can tell, I am quite a cowardly person, my over imaginative mind tends to cause a lot of problems for me, although many of my most creative stories stem from it, many of my fears tend to be caused by it as well.