Fear

Fear is good, fear is bad, fear is the best fun I've ever had!

I have to say as an opening line in my Fear poem that I wrote a few years ago, it conjures up all kinds of images as to what sort of fun you could have with fear.

As a kid growing up I was terrified of most things and most of the things I was scared of were created by the media. I avoided horror films because the word 'horror' conjured up blood and gore and scary monsters worse than Doctor Who. But horror in itself also invited you to watch because you wanted to know what the kids in school were so hyped up about. The film most people talked about was 'The American Werewolf in London' which I have to say having watched the film, I am still spooked by certain elements, mostly mirrors I have to say.

In the film after the main character was attacked by the werewolf and his friend was having his guts ripped out in the background and his face attacked, he reappeared in stages of decay in the mirror of his friends bathroom. That in itself scared the hell out of me for most of my teenage and adult life, after that the only other two horror films were The Shining and Salem's Lot.

Salem's Lot I only watched because at that particular time my heart-throb was David Soul, so naturally I would watch anything he was in. Plot line of the story seemed to be that the character David Soul played was returning to his old stomping ground of Salem, or he was a writer. I didnt pay much attention obviously to the plot line, and spent most of the film with my hands in front of my face and peering between my fingers. If only my fingers had stretched far enough over my ears I could have blocked out all the sounds which guaranteed would be keeping me awake for the next three nights. Mostly because outside of my bedroom window happened to be a tall bush that scratched on the glass during gales. When I called my Dad to let the dog sleep in my room, the dog was going through a devil stage and leapt on the bed, pinning me completely within his legs and I couldnt move, he could have bitten my neck and I'd be vampired. He was no help at all!

The Shining was different, I watched this film as an adult in the new house in Scotland which had a long hallway, similar to that where the twin girls stood in their blue dresses. Yeah, that seriously freaked me out, in fact apart from the ucky woman in the bath, that was probably the only part of the film that scared the begees out of me.

Fear is fantastic for a writer but I have to be careful when I write about fear at night because I have been known to scare even myself.

I wrote a poem a few years ago after a child I looked after suffered bullies terribly, but as I wrote it I began to write from both sides of the scale, from the victim to the bully and then I kind of drifted towards Fear having a voice of its own, which became something stronger and then I found I couldnt finish it. This is a problem I face a lot when I write poetry, after covering five pages of verse I find I can't always wind it up, I find there is more I need to add until suddenly you feel like Shakespeare, reams and reams of words and where does it end?

As a person I do have an active or perhaps over-active imagination, I can see elements of fear in most things in life. I fear the dark, I imagine there are all kinds of creatures and non-creatures lurking in the dark doorways, behind the trash cans in alleyways. As the shadows grow tall and the darkness creeps over the city or the town, suddenly the streets become bare, the people all hide from the darkness, what are they scared of?

Me probably!

I am now a proper grown up, although perhaps not completely that grown up as I still watch Doctor Who, have posters on my walls of the 10th Doctor and models of Star Wars ships on top of my wardrobe and a 12" Dalek on my chest of drawers, hardly what you'd call a proper grown up, then!

I love sci-fi which has its own fear factor, take Aliens for example, how many of you knew that the alien was still in the ship as Ripley was setting her course for Earth? Yeah, I did leap from my seat and darn near wet myself. But the aliens are fantastic, I love them, even to the point of buying a full on head mask of a drone alien. You can see this proper grown up image is slipping further into the gutter as I continue.

Fear keeps you alive though, if you had no fear, you would have no imagination, you wouldnt be able to consider the possibilities of the worst case scenario. You couldnt make those plans, the what if this happened, what if there really was someone hiding behind that trash can, they might jump out at me, what do I have in my defence? So your mind takes over and compensates, it ensures you have somewhat of an idea how to protect yourself, it might even suggest you don't become the next victim and NOT walk into that dark alleyway, perhaps find an alternative way home, or better still, why leave it this late, why not get a bus, taxi or just hey, maybe not go out???

I will be adding my poem to this piece of nonsense I've written, it's been a while since I wrote anything. I've been busy, I'm enjoying life at the moment, but the Fear poem might make you think otherwise.