practice.. 2023 Sep 5 Tue.. literary rug

7pm.. writing prompt..
what is your fear afraid of?

I love flying in my dreams.. now. It will often start with me just running and leaping off a parking lot curb like I did when I ran cross country many years ago in high school. It felt like flying then and in the dreams I just keep floating after launch. Soon I don't even need that initial jump and I just float to wherever I want.

This is new and glorious. When I first flew in my dreams, I was not in charge like that. I would always be enveloped by a brown cloud and held silently above everyone. I would scream for help and no one could hear me even if a whisper came out of me. One time, I finally did get the attention of my sister and the brown cloud never took me again.

Instead, the fear of the brown cloud became a man made of tv static. He would sneak up behind me and I knew he was the one trying to get me into the brown cloud again.. maybe got the last time ever.

I've day, I woke up particularly frightened and was old enough to think about the situation. I decided the next time I felt the static man was behind me, I would just turn and look.

That's what he was afraid of. He never returned. The lesson has been with me ever since. Fear is afraid of its own nothingness. When I'm afraid and put off doing a thing then finally try it, the problems I was afraid of never are the things that go wrong. Why would it? It's not me anymore.