My Fears Realised

Clambering through a sea of waist-high grass and bushes, I eventually arrived at that innocuous little window at the back of the house. The very sight of it frightened me, but this was mere memory and not the strange feeling of being watched from within as I had experienced as a child. Peering in, the room looked eerily familiar. I suppose there is little that can be done with a room so small, so oddly narrow, but through the dirt covered glass the room looked almost unchanged from when I had slept in it. A bed, a set of drawers, and what looked like an assortment of toys on the floor.

A profound sense of anger washed over me momentarily, but I shook it quickly from my mind. The room was clearly that of a child's and the thought of that thing harming another innocent filled me with contempt for such a thought, and within me swelled the desire to protect any child from such an abomination.

As I gazed at that wall, of which a bed lay alongside it, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. For a moment (and it was for only the slightest) I thought I saw the blanket on top of the bed move. More than that, through that window pane I could have sworn I heard a wheezing gasp. Closing my eyes tightly I repeated another scientific mantra:

"Science does not owe its debts to imagination."

Opening my eyes I saw nothing but an empty bedroom. No foul spirits, no unearthly things; just a room, no more, no less. I breathed a sigh of relief as it that all was well with world for the first time in many days. You may think that it was wishful thinking, but I genuinely felt that I had shown myself that there was nothing to be scared of, other than my over-active imagination.

It was starting to get dark and I wanted to be home before the night. Filled with confidence now that my anxieties were behind me, there was one last thing I needed to do. When we had left that house we did so in a hurry. As a child it was disorientating, even frightening to leave everything I knew behind, but there was one thing left which I always wondered about.