Alone in the Dark

I am afraid of the dark. There, I have said it, shamelessly. But add that this particular fear of mine is normally not something I would say in the first line of the first paragraph of my story. I am a CA student, I am a daughter, a sister, a friend, a patriot, a feminist and many more things that I am proud of, that I wear like a badge and flaunt like a star. And let me also tell you that this particular fear is not something that has escalated to a phobia. Maybe it's because of the precautionary measures I have taken - like the use of a night bulb, carrying a mobile torch with me all the time, persuading my dad to by an automatic inverter battery which gives back up the second power goes off and to top it off a well crafted inward-outward strategy. That is, my movement in and out of each room in the house will be such that either it will be broad daylight, or I will have company or there will be someone in the room already. In short, most of the time I am not even aware of such a fear. But I shouldn't have taken my brain for granted. Nope, not at all, because the human brain thinks for itself too. Even if I don't know it, the fear exists. And it is bound to surface... Eventually!

I love the night. Ironical as it may sound, the night has so many things that make me excited - like the air-conditioner which is invariably set at 17 degree celsius, the beautiful 8 hour sleep (which even my CA life was not able to shorten by even a second) under my very precious blanket which is silky on the downside and furry on the up (took me 3 whole days to select it) and the sight of the moon from my bed. On full moon nights I turn off the night bulb to enjoy the full moon, it soothes me, dispels my fears and, let me poetically add, that the moonlight is a cold blanket for me. Irresistable!

*SLAP* that was me slapping against my own cheek. Why did I do that? I don't remember. But now my cheek is itching. As I touch my cheek I also realise that I am sweating! My whole body is sweating. "Sweat at 17 degree celsius? Am I crazy?" As the heat builds up under my blanket I slowly wake up to my senses, "The AC is switched off, Must be a power-cut and the inverter must have died". My assessment continues, "Wonder what mom and dad are doing? Have the mosquitoes teamed up with the sweat glands to wake them up too. Let me have a look." I open my eyes and suddenly the heart beat doubles and triples, the lap-dap becomes thud-thud. No nightlight, no moonlight - absolute darkness. I hold my breath and stare into space - Frozen.

As darkness engulfs me, adrenaline is pumped into my blood, I writhe under my blanket, but its simply too hard to make an actual movement. My eyes are wide open, I don't whether it was trying to find some trace of light in space or the fear took over all my muscles, it was difficult to control myself. "Light, light, where is the light", the obvious took too long to strike me, "Mobile torch-light!" I stretched my arms outside the blanket and ran my fingers over the table next to my bed, where I normally keep my cell phone. 

Now, it is very much possible that I may have knocked something over, it might be possible that I was so tensed at that moment that I pushed everything out of the table or... I don't know. But in that darkness which consumed me every second, as my heart-beat grew faster after every pulse, as my eyes nearly popped out thirsty for some light I heard a deafening bang - as if every item of kitchen crockery had fallen on the ground in my room. And the noise didn't stop; it pierced through my ears, echoing again and again and again.

I tightly tucked myself under the blanket, braving the heat and the sweat, hugging my knees and my eyes firmly shut. The noise was still in my ears, my entire body was shivering in fright, I couldn't think, it was as if my brain was switched off. I struggled to find air, my lungs refused to take in any oxygen and there was nothing I could do, absolutely nothing. 

The clanging voice finally stopped, only to get replaced by an even more deafening silence. And the absolute stillness seemed to take physical form. It was touching me, its hand reached for my shoulder and pulled me above. I tucked myself even harder under the blanket and hugged the pillow as tightly as possible. But it wasn't helping, the darkness somehow seeped into the blanket and began to taunt me. I was being bullied, tortured, horrified. The invisible presence hovering above my head fed my diabolic imagination, my brain presumed the invisibilty to acquire dangerous forms and I was thoroughly convinced of an impending disaster. Logic was washed away, I was under the spell of my fear - Frozen.

 

In the final moment, much like the dramatic climax of any thriller movie, as the darkness was about to take me away, the rescuer roared into life in the form of my air-conditioner along with its loyal side-kick, the night-bulb. Brightness was restored, sight had comeback and silence was thwarted away! Like a real super-hero, electricity had shooed away the villains and restored peace. But I didn't have much time to look into the poetic or romantic aspect of that rescue, because the minute my room returned to 17 degree celsius, I had slipped into the avalanche of DEEP SLEEP.

Love