THE FEAR

… and the child gripped his blanket as the shuffling grew closer in the hallway of the carpeted trailer that smelled of smoke and whiskey, his bed wet with urine and his heart beat with terror. The drunken shuffling lurched and the child jumped out of the bedroom and ran down the hall as the demon breathed through the trailer and into the cold, dark yard, trailing the roads and timelines, twisting insidiously, touching the boy’s lives. The Fear trickled down the boy’s neck…

…when he walked the hallway, the left side of his body went numb as the trickled fear dripped invectives through his consciousness. The boy sat at his desk and pulled and twisted his long and curly hair as the numbing fear coursed through his face. He opened his jaw and moved it side to side, trying to oust the numbed madness. After class he stepped into the cold, gray, morning and smoked a cigarette, numbing the Fear. He lit another…

…and smoked his 60th cigarette of the day, pushing the Fear back one cherried dagger at a time. He drank his 20th beer and finished the bottle of Jack Daniel’s and reeled, the shield complete, the deep fear quelled, tho now a new fear arises, out of control, a broken dance on a sheer cliff, listing horrifically, the tumultuous swing of the alcoholic dance, the arrhythmic beat coursing crost his consciousness. He remembers…

…when Jimi Hendrix came out of his closet door, materializing through the wood, the grains and lines of the brown wood changing color and shaping his form, playing the guitar, and the boy knew he was losing his mind. He stood up from the edge of his bed and walked down the hall, pausing, as the waves of psychosis thrummed like Hendrix’s guitar, a beautiful poison, as Jimi unsuccessfully tried to steer him out of the pain with his psychedelic wall of colored sound. The boy remembered everything, then walked back into his room and jumped out of his second storey window. He ran. Lights flashed chasing him and the Fear took control. His father ran him down and grabbed at him and the boy shook him off, then ran the length of the road as the Fear followed and led. The lights danced near so he hid under a porch. The lights returned so the boy ran again, through yards and streets, onto the train tracks that led to the fields and woods, the sky turned purple and the words came down from the sky, written in smoke, I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW. The boy looked at the tumbled words and knew that he had gone insane, so he sat and smoked and watched the messages unfold. They told him…

…to light another cigarette as he stood aside the white bricked building by the handicap ramp, to stave off the ebbed fear after the gray clouds cleared of the misted message Candace spoke in the group circle. She told the group they were there for a reason, and that they could quit and live or continue to use and die. As the mist formed in the room and engulfed him it took most of the Fear with it. He walked to the edge of the handicap ramp…

…and stood on the edge of a 6 storey cliff staring at the ocean and his heart beat with fear, so he took the stone from his pocket and threw it into the water like the dream instructed, watching it soar then drop, creating tiny concentric circles in the water when it hit far below, then he dove, hitting the water so hard his clenched fists punched him in the forehead at impact, diving deep into the clear water, then swimming up for air, reaching for the surface…

…and the wind whipped and caught his breath on the cliff as the soft snow flew hard and the icy rock lip dropped many feet onto sharp rock and he slid down toward the icy rock lip each time he moved, so he stopped and edged to his left toward the snow covered rock where he got a hand hold and unstrapped and put the board above his head and crawled on top of the snow covered rock slowly and inched back up the mountain on his belly carrying the board ahead of him and burying it in the snow with each inch, pulling himself up the steep slope, slowly, the Fear subsiding with each inch…

…until the police told him to pull over again for no reason and jumped on the hood of his car, handcuffed him, took him to jail, the Fear returned as he passed the cells and was put in the holding tank. It grew late and most of the men in the large cell lay on the ground, sleeping, as a man paced the cell.

‘Hey man, what you in here for?’ the man asked him.
 
‘I don’t even know.’

‘I know that’s right. Hey,’ the man addressed the cell. ‘Look at y’all niggas laying on the floor. Y'all look like a buncha tired ass chess pieces.’

The two awake men laughed in the cell together, the Fear abated as they waited…

…and waited…

…and the Fear ebbed, and the man thought it was gone, after a lifetime of fear he felt the anger recede, he felt safe, he finally had things, a girlfriend, a boat, a truck, a house, and another house. These girded him from the Fear. It could not penetrate his wall of gain, accomplishment, things, money helped keep the Fear away…until the cops pulled him over again for no reason, and everything was taken from him, and he was plunged into the Fear again, and screamed…

…for 5 years…

…and spent his 20th anniversary in sobriety homeless living in a motel room, his car totaled by a stranger, his belongings in storage and his pets at his friends house, everything gone, his houses, and boat, and cars, and women, and he screamed again until he was hoarse, the Fear turning to frustration and then unhinged rage, he screamed until his vision became a spinning tunnel of rage, his voice raw and gone, exhausted…

…he realized it was all a test, he had to face his deepest fears in this life, not having family, severe abuse, psychosis, loneliness, addiction, loss of everything, prison, homelessness, it was a test that he had to conquer and have faith. Faith in the universe, the higher power, and God will conquer fear more than the money and cars, the women and boats, travel and experience. He must trust in faith for the Fear to leave forever, so he knelt in the motel room and prayed, and meditated to God to take away the Fear, and he felt it leaving, all of the pain and rage, being expelled…

…like a pack of rabid dogs it roared back and tore at his still sore throat, mauling him in the shitty motel room, pulling him down to the threadbare carpet as cars drove too fast on the freeway outside the door, their headlights splaying crost the curtains and lighting the terror pack ripping at him, demonic like when he was a teenager, coming out of the walls and ceiling, gripping to take him to hell, he looked outside and the night sky was purple, letting him know where he belonged, never to breath, never to succeed, never t


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Gregory is interested in the blend of the fantastic into reality, unzipping existence to reveal a mystical reality that runs synonymously with our own. He spent a lot of time writing as a child and young man. A long struggle with reality derailed him for a long time. He is happy to be writing again. He has been published in The Hearth and Coffin, Culterate, Stone of Madness Press, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, and was shortlisted for the 2024 Alpine Fellowship.