Afraid of the Dark?

It was the Halloween before I was shot.
I was alone as usual.
Kevin had moved to Rochester so no friends.
My family is convinced that I am beating up my dad and haven’t been shy of telling anyone who will carry the story.
I must be a real pro at it as I leave no marks on him.
As if with these huge ham hocks that are my fists wouldn’t bruse him.
I did throw a plastic spoon at him once and it stuck in his arm! Just a regular plastic spoon, not a spork, and from about 20 feet away too.
A billion to one shot.

Yet I can’t pick a winning lotto number.
Go figure.
Well….
Everything was being destroyed or is falling apart for me.
They blamed me for getting my mom and dad to move back home.
We lived better here on welfare than we lived in Florida with me working a full-time job!
At least we didn’t have to eat milk and rice everyday anymore. And mom had the implant that ruptured removed and was healing slowly from the silicon poisoning from the burst breast implant.
Breast Cancer Sucks.
The doctors in Florida wouldn’t remove it. They just sucked her insurance money down at $400 a visit. Until her insurance ran out. And they knew it was her implant causing the problem. They would rather let her die than remove that piece of crap leaking all through her body!
We had to come home.
There was no other way!
Outside it was getting dark; But not as dark as it was inside me at the time.
My depression felt like a well deep in my body that just pulled everything good in my life into an abyss.
And now I was fighting my doctor too.
He wants to believe that my depression is only “In My Head” all I need is some drugs.
After all, I was just trying to get social security.
And of course, I’m a faker!
Nothing bad ever happened to me…Lately.
He just prescribes over-glorified aspirin.
It helps with nothing.
My back hurts.
My life sucks.
I needed to go for a walk.
That always gives me time to put things into perspective; Time to shore up my defenses.
I walk down the road toward Montour Falls.
I don’t have a flashlight. I was too upset to grab it. My family and Cathy are calling me uncle fester because I’m weird and wear my sweaters that I got for Christmas the year before.
At the time they are the best clothes that I owned.
I feel so down that I don’t care if I die!
Alone in the dark I always felt panicky and that I was going to die.
The darkness starts to close in on me.
No houses, no lights, no moon, just me and my fear of the dark.

Something is moving in the trees and thoughts of monsters coming from the cemetery stir in my head!
Go ahead and kill me I don’t care anymore!
I’m tired of being hurt.
I’m tired of being afraid!
Every nerve is screaming for me to run.
“Do you hear me I’m not going to “Run”!
“Do your worst!”
I’m passing into the woods next to the cemetery.
I’ve had enough of being afraid!
I turn and run into the cemetery!
This ends NOW!
Something comes crashing towards me from the woods.
It’s coming to kill me.
“I AM NOT GOING TO BE AFRAID ANYMORE!”
I charge the monster.
My fist closed, my arm cock back.
I swing at the dark mass in front of me!
I scream like a bear!
I swing again!
I can’t see and my legs are like jelly but I swing!
The buck falls to the ground and rolls onto its side from my punch!
It’s a deer.
It’s a deer.
Oh my god it’s a deer!
The poor animal stands and shakes its head.
I see its fear.
I see it squat and piss.
I see myself as it runs away in terror.
The monster in the dark had come for me and it was a deer.
I walk numbly into the cemetery.
I sit on someone’s head stone and start to cry.
I won.
I was not afraid anymore.
I sat there till dawn and I was not afraid.
I won.