13 September 2012 nonfiction, "Fear"

    One of my favorite quotes is written in colorful sharpie on an index card taped to my wall—a product of a night of feeling creative. The quote says: “Fear is a dark room where negatives develop.” This is one of my favorite quotes because it describes fear as something rational, something that just is. It’s a dark room where negatives develop.

            My worst fear is something real. It’s something that can work its way into my skin and stay there no matter how many lights I turn on, and no matter how loud I play my music, but, it’s also abstract. It isn’t a clear picture, but it still has the potential to leave me shivering in the darkness of my bedroom, begging for sunrise just because I want to feel safe again.

            I remember that first night. I never should have watched that movie, never should have read that book when I was so young, so vulnerable. It was stupid, I was stupid. Of course I’d seen scary movies before, but nothing like this. Nothing that was real, that was historical, that was an account of people actually behaving in such a crazy and inhumane way.

            I went to bed that night but I can’t remember if I slept or not. It may have been so late that I fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, but I’m not really sure. All I do recall is tears flowing before I realized I was crying, choked sobs I tried so hard to hide because I didn’t want to prove my mom right. She knew it was too horrifying for me, but I didn’t want to listen. I never wanted something to be too extreme for me, in any way shape or form. I wanted to be that girl that could handle anything; sometimes I still strive to be that girl.

            My worst fear is the Holocaust. And it probably is a mistake that it is 11:27 at night and I am writing about a fear that takes its shape in the darkness. But I need to get this out.

            I hate everything about it. The pictures, the videos, anything I hear about it immediately brings up horrible feelings. Fear that rises up inside me like a dark cloud rises up to swallow the sun and completely change a beautiful day into something black as night.

            Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl is the book/movie that scared the living daylights out of me. I read it in fifth grade, saw the movie in sixth. I was too young. Out of that whole movie, I only remember two scenes. The first being the scene in the cargo train, the one where I cried and I didn’t remember exactly why. Perhaps it was because of the sheer inhumanity of it all. I couldn’t believe that something like that could be allowed to happen.

            The second scene I remember so vividly. It is one of the last scenes in the movie. It is the one where Anne is laying down with her sister, Margot, and she wakes up to the sound of birds chirping. She nudges Margot, saying “Margot, Margot, I hear birds! Everything will be all right, because I hear birds! Things will be fine because the birds are still chirping, the world is still alive outside of this horrible place.” But as she keeps nudging Margot, she realizes she is getting no response. And that is when she realizes that Margot is dead, and she is all alone with the false hope presented by the birds. And I cried and cried at this scene. Margot was gone, and it was obvious that Anne would soon be gone as well. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that Anne was never going to get out, never going to survive to tell her tale. I cried until the tears made my face feel numb.

It is this scene from this movie that makes me shiver as I try to type as softly and gently as I can. For fear of disturbing what? I would be the last one to know. I tense up, listen to every little sound and try to be as still as possible. I’m afraid. This makes me afraid.

            It’s just all too real. It happened, that person lived and died and suffered more than I or anyone I know will ever understand; yet the Holocaust is fascinating. I know that. I research it so much. I don’t go to google and type “concentration camp” into the search engine to find as disturbing media as I can, no I’m not that stupid. But I had to write a research paper in eighth grade, I’m ready to do my Holocaust project this year. When I went to Germany this summer, I visited Dachau,but didn’t sleep for a few nights afterward.

I want to learn all I can, because maybe, maybe, that will help me to get over my fear, rationalize the thing that makes me so afraid I want to cry.