Word Count: 358
Somewhere in the darker rooms of the mind are stored bad memories fed by years of fear. With time they grow up and scratch at their gray-mattered walls. The psychiatrist was helping me, bit by bit, to open up each door and peek inside. He would be there, he assured me, to help me face them. To stare them down and prove myself strong enough to squash them underfoot.
Each session made me feel a little better. Each ghost came up and, terrified, I looked it in the eye. The psychiatrist was by my side to give me confidence, to help win the battles that I’d hidden deep inside. Each confrontation left me exhausted. Yet each seemed to let loose a demon that shriveled and died in the light. He’d talk me through it, hold my hand, stand ground together. I felt I could eventually overcome them all with his help.
He taught me exercises to do when the nightmares threatened or thoughts wandered in in the midst of day. Taking control. Peeking in and slamming the door. He said it would help, that I’d be stronger still if I knew what I was facing. That half the fear was of the unknown. To familiarize myself with the enemy and thus prepared, win the war. He said it was important to do this. That he might not always be there when they came.
I tried it tonight as I awoke in a cold perspiration, my breath in short gasps. In the dark I keep my eyes closed, try to remember the evil I’d brought to the surface. There it is, a wisp of a grin, fingers over my mouth, a whisper of warning in my ear and the weight of a body that takes my breath away.
Clearer, clearer in memory, almost getting the face. I open the door a tiny bit more as the doctor had told me and with a rush, all the demons fly out! In a circle around and above me, they laugh like hyenas, shrieking in devilish delight. And I can’t, just can’t, with every shred of my will, shut the door.
