You Call Her Fear


 This will be short. I am going to try out a writing exercise and invite anyone interested to try it as well. It's pretty simple. Here are the rules:

Make a list of the things that scare you, then choose the one thing that trumps all others. Then write a short piece in which you visit this fate on one of your characters.

Here's my list of mostly irrational fears:

Angry spirits

Bad guys in dark alleys

Being buried alive

Being sunk in the ocean

Loss of meaning to life


And here we go:


Arnold never spoke about his time in Vietnam. Those close to him knew not to ask. His wife had feared that if he went back in the telling of it, she'd loose him again. When he had returned he was sullen and moody for the first year. He could often be found drinking in the dark in their garage. Then, one spring day, he poured out the contents of his whiskey bottles and joined her in the house. Over the course of that summer he slowly returned to the man he'd been before the war. His wife was so happy to have him back that she feared mention of the war at all. Arnold noticed this. He could have told her that it would take more than talk to send him back there, but he didn't. The truth was, he didn't know how to talk about the war at all. He didn't know where to start, nor did he want to. How could he explain the horrible things that happened over there to his gentle wife, the mother of his son? There were things even his comrades wouldn't understand, things he couldn't explain if he tried. So he buried them and only in his dreams did he go back. 

On summer nights when the Minnesota air was sweet with the scents pine and lush, wild grass, Arnold would inhale and smell the heavy scent of the jungle.

It wasn't the jungle that haunted him though. It was the sea. It was one perfectly beautiful day when he and five other American soldiers had been captured near the Mekong river. Beaten and tied to trees, the men all tried to make their peace with god. Arnold had never been a religious man. Being a shape-shifter, he always figured most religions would see him as a work of the devil. He instead turned his young face to the sun. Nature was god to him, and nature was everywhere, even in the war torn jungle that was handing him his death. 

He stood there until late the afternoon, then he and the others were untied from their trees and marched to a small boat. They grew nervous. They had been preparing themselves for an execution style death. But the bag filled with rocks that sat in the boat suggested death by another means.

They rode silently and ominously out to sea, and when they could see no land the boat slowed to an idle. The rocks were tied to the first man, then each man was tied to the next. The rope was bound so tightly around their wrists that the circulation to their hands was nearly cut off. Their captors wasted no time. The bag of rocks was thrown over and the first man was quickly pulled overboard. Two seconds later the next man was pulled in, then the next. Like dominos they fell until finally Arnold was pulled in. They sank quickly and Arnold was glad to see the sneering faces of their executioners disappear. As his lungs began to burn for air he knew there was still one thing he could do to save himself, but the thought of abandoning his companions in the hour of their death was nearly unbearable. He saw his new wife and their son in his mind as he sank and felt compelled to shift, but instead he paused to acknowledge that every man beneath him also had a family at home they would never see again. Then, from deep in his brain he heard his brother's voice. "Shift, Arnold!" he said. This startled Arnold from his thoughts. It  chilled him. His brother had been dead for over ten years. "This is their time, but it isn't your time. Shift!" More from fear and bewilderment than anything else, he did as he was told and shifted. His body twisting and stretching, his face growing long, the points of his wolf ears growing atop his head, and finally his arms and legs growing long and slender. They easily slid from the binding that rendered his human arms motionless. His toes spread wide, turning his four large feet into paddles and his kicked towards the shimmering orb of the sun that reached down from above. 

Beneath him the others watched in unbelieving astonishment as the form of the wolf grew smaller and smaller, all the while they sank into the darkness, pulling his secret down with them. 




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