Arachnophobia

Best Story in Mar, 2021 ;

When everyone is young, they yield a certain fear that holds them back from doing things that others can do. Whether it’s acrophobia, aerophobia, claustrophobia, or any other kinds of possible phobias children could have, all of them have been faced with different levels of bravery and varying conclusions, both good and bad. All of us, as children, have faced challenges that involve fears that stirred from traumatic experiences, and I will share a personal experience I’ve encountered in the past that has awakened a fear that still lives inside me to this day. 

The crisp autumn air had recently fallen upon the city, and a spell had bewitched the trees orange and yellow. A sound of crunching leaves could be heard about every corner of the little world that I lived in, and my mind swirled around the thoughts of activities and friends and everything a young child could ever think of during the fall season. I walked along yellowing fields of grass, enchanted by everything in sight. Occasionally my easily-impressed eyes would point out a gaggle of geese or a flock of ducks, to which my parents would smile encouragingly the way adults smiled at clueless children.

The pathway of which we strolled twisted and turned around trees, the latter littering leaves all over the former. A sudden poke agitated my back, and I turned around to see Pearl’s smiling young face an inch from my own. Our parents dropped back as we chattered excitedly of all young dreams of candy and toys and dolls and whatnot until Pearl squealed with delight at seeing a large thing crawling curiously on a small maple leaf. She leaned closer, and my simple mind decided that that was a good idea. I followed in her footsteps, intrigued until the succeeding event occurred so quickly that my slow brain wouldn’t be able to process it, given the limit of a lifetime.

I’d leaned too close. A flicker, a shriek, and a distant sound of -- was that laughing or crying? Yet that didn’t matter to me at all. Eight spindly legs tickled my nose, as a pair of tiny, harmless pincers soundlessly clicked in front of my eyes. Six beads of gleaming black ink bore their gaze into the shallow depths of my pathetic soul. My throat was sore -- why? Those screams couldn’t be mine… they were too far away. And the sudden merciless murk that covered my eyes like a blanket had to be the demon’s wicked witchcraft. As were the cackles… and the pain in the back of my head… as were the pounding noises roaring in my ears… 

And then at last -- at last! Gone was the devil’s spawn from my face! But still, a fear was borne like a seed into the vast cavities of my mind. A fear of small, harmless, hairy vertebrates that had the satanic name “spiders.” A fear of hairy little bugs in general. 

I still run away, panicked, each time I meet these demons this very day.