The Power of Fear

I opened my eyes rubbing them profusely, oh no, what time was it? My heart pounded loudly against my chest, I could feel it beating, hear it too, even without placing my hand on my chest. Today, more like everyday, I had to watch the news. Why you ask? Simply because it was my only real way of connecting with the world. I did not like leaving my house except for groceries. And the possibility was endless of things that could happen in a instant of me being gone, so that pretty much explains why I don't like leaving my house. I mean, the house could burn down, someone important could drop by, perhaps an accident would occur and they needed witnesses. I simply could not leave.

Back to the time, I turned my graying head towards the clock radio that sat on my night stand. Eight thirty-five. I was five minutes late! I threw off my bed sheets, darting for the door, merely having the time to grab my housecoat. I stopped running immediately the second I saw the stairs, though.

Falling... falling would be painful. I carefully put down one foot of a time, and latched myself on to the railing. It was not that I was afraid of heights, more like, I was afraid of what would happen if I fell, there was only fifteen stairs, but I could not help but think of the outcome if I misplaced even one foot.

Once I got to the bottom I sprung towards the living room and turned on the TV. Darn, it had took me three minutes to get down there. As I changed it to my favorite news station, I backed up, taking a seat on the couch, patting down my uncombed auburn hair. A lot of grays had appeared, but nothing really had changed other than that since I was the age of twenty-five, the year where I got scared of hurting myself in any way possible after seeing what happened to my friend. She had carelessly left a nail on the floor, and tramped on it moments later, only to get rust in her blood stream and nearly dying from it. Now, at the age of thirty, I am still a paranoid freak. You would not think one could get so many grays in just five years, especially when so young, but don't judge it until you see it, right?

The commercials finished and they resumed what had just happened, a flood, yes, that was nothing out of the ordinary. It was the caption beside “Next” that made me shriek. The caption said “How painful and tragic the journey of a taxi driver can be.” I brought my knees up to my chin and squeezed them tightly, breathing harder with every second passing. I sprung up quickly, peaking out my window, then resuming to yank them shut again, afraid of any taxi drivers seeing me. There was an excess of them passing now-a-days, and I did not want to see them again. I drug my fragile frame back to the couch and curled up on it, jumping into a seating position again when the news lady started talking again about the subject of a taxi.

“A newly licensed taxi driver drove a man to his home, only to discover a mafia waiting outside of his lot, wanting the man to pay him and get out quickly, he tried to make no eye contact with the men outside,” the woman spoke. “Lets watch a re-play of what was caught on tape, from the neighbor.”

The video consisted of the man who had been driven home not paying the man, getting out of his car and signaling the mafia crew to approach the vehicle. The taxi driver sped off, but as he was leaving the he managed to receive a busted windshield, as one of the men hit the cab drivers' car with a crowbar. The man appeared uninjured, but tests were taken and he did indeed have a piece of glass in his eye that could, or could not make him semi-blind in the next few weeks.

“So there you have it, the sight possibly taken away by an innocent man. We will continue in a few moments, but now back to Roger Calloway,” she said.

“Thank you Tracy, now -”Leanne turned off the TV, re-thinking about what she had just heard. Now that was something that she could not bear to see happen, or happen in general. Who would want someone to lose their eye sight for no reason at all. Shaking her head, she got up walking to the kitchen to make herself some toast. Taking out a slice of bread she popped a toast into the toaster.

“Now, for the plates,” she said sing-song-like. She pulled out pink plastic plates, yes she used plastic. Plastic knives, forks, plates and bowls. The only non-plastic thing she used was spoons. Why some may ask? In fear of it breaking and cutting her by walking on it. Once the toast popped she unplugged it, taking oven mitts to retrieve her toast. She could not afford burning herself, now. Even if it was just a little hot at the start, she refused to touch it until they cooled down. Once that was done she scurried to the fridge, taking out the jam to put on her toast and began to eat it with delight. She cleaned up afterward, washing her hands carefully. It was only then did she realize she had a little cut on her hand. She looked down in the sink and saw a shard of glass. There was no way possible for that to have got there.

Shrieking loudly, she looked up at her window and her surroundings, there was no glass broken or anything breakable nearby, she ran into the living room and curled up in a ball she was not getting up again, not until she figured it out. She kept her finger wrapped in a tissue, not only was she never getting up again, but she had never saw the man standing by her side. And once she did notice, the last words she heard were “Don't worry, you will only feel a little pinch.” The man leaped on the couch and wrapped something around her throat, making her suffocate, and eventually die, partly out of trauma. With a sly grin he left the door open and walked away from her house, into the woods. Her neighbors would never notice miss Leanne's disappearance, no one would, for she never left the house.