Sydney-Fear

Sydney- Fear

It is amazing that so many of our colloquial phrases about fear are so on the nose. “Scared shitless”, is a real thing, some people when frightened have to run straight to the bathroom. The fear shakes them literally “to the core” and they must relieve themselves. “Paralyzed by fear”, Sydney recently discovered is a real thing too. While traveling in Spain she had a first hand encounter with this brand of fright. She had gone up to Pamplona to visit her beloved brother and was quite enjoying her stay and her ultra, adult-like independence.

            No longer with her group from school, she had booked a bed in a hostel. By sheer luck she had a six-person room to herself one night and only one “compañera de cuarto” the second. Upon returning late to her room the third night Sydney saw a lump in one of her many beds and thought of course, its another girl. So she showered, and feeling sleepy, comfortable and warm she hopped into bed in some fairly large underwear and a t-shirt. It was at 3:30 am that ol’ Syd experienced the fright of her life

            She woke abruptly to the voice of a strange man in her newly found sanctum. Said man in the pitch dark was talking rapidly in a language Sydney did not understand. Her heart stopped. “How did a man get in here?” “What’s he doing?!” “Holy shit! Why am I not wearing pants?”

She sat so still that she could hear his every heavy masculine breath. After moments of lifeless fear and listening, She determined said man was speaking German, and he was sleep talking. While texting her best friends, so that someone would know why she had died, the light dawned on her.

            There was no other girl in this room. The lump had been a man all along. She sat still lifeless, until slowly regaining her faculties, finger by finger, she turned herself forcibly towards this body-less voice, so that she could engage in the proper fight or flight.

            After sitting/laying perfectly petrified and freaked out for about an hour, she drifted back off to sleep. The morning light and the comfort of pants, showed the scary German body-less man to be an extremely sweet Swiss-German boy. He spoke in a lovely broken English to his new silly friend and joked after apologizing for frightening her with his abnormal nocturnal speech patterns.

            That kind of irrational nighttime, boogey monster fear was and had always been a part of Sydney’s life and most often it resolved just as happily. Sydney took it as a marker and a fair trade for an active imagination. But there was another fear she was not so proud of, which had also reigned during a period of her life.

            As a girl in Texas Sydney had been shy but happy, content with her friends, family and life. Unfortunately, being uprooted from this group and place did not start off so well. Timid and clad in children’s hand-me-downs Sydney walked into Due West Elementary School, and from day one she could tell it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. She was a stranger, an outsider and (a new term to her also) a dork. While trying to survive and make at least one real friend, Sydney adopted the “keep your head down” mentality, especially on the school bus. If she kept from standing out and sat close to the front, she escaped everyday, home to the safety of her dogs and family.

            It was during this self-preservation phase that she observed some of the worst bullying of her life. You’ve heard of the totem pole right? Well luckily for Sydney there was one kid below her, who’s weirdness was painted on him in the brightest neon yellow. This boy lived outside her neighborhood with his Mormon mother and Jewish father. He was white as paper and had dark circles so large, that he looked quite akin to the garden-variety raccoon. Adam might not have been doing ok, because he went to the school counselor a lot. And unfortunately he was incapable of blending in, in any way. Everyday when he got off the bus he bade everyone “Shalom”, to the ridicule of his wolf-like peers.

            One day this poor boy made a fatal mistake, having forgot his viola in the orchestra room, he abandoned his backpack to run for his instrument. One of his many tormentors did not let such a golden opportunity pass. He, meaning to go through the boy’s stuff, snatched his backpack from its place on the cracked brown leather seat. He didn’t have to dig any further. Behind the backpack a smaller bag had been concealed, it was the size of a 90’s backpack purse, and was decorated with a giant smiley face.

            Adam ran onto the bus, happy to have reached it in time with his newly retrieved instrument. It was a blood bath. The kids made fun of him relentlessly. To this day she remembers that poor boy crying and shaking, clinging to that tiny little backpack for dear life.

            In that moment she had neither been brave nor self-less. Instead of defending that boy, she sat back helpless as she watched the onslaught. Like a dog in a Jack London novel, she let her instincts win and watched the weak be attacked by the strong. She never did find out what became of Adam. Soon his parents pulled him out of school and she never saw him again.

             It was fear that had restrained her that day. Fear of ridicule, of the cool kids, of falling into an even lower rung of the food chain. That primordial fear allowed her to watch someone suffer needlessly, rather than risk her own neck.