blind terror

i've reached the point of absolute fear.

there. i've said it, admitted it, bowed my head. i'm not just scared, i'm terrified. this is the real thing - a shaking-in-your-shoes, quaking-in-your-boots, wake-you-screaming-for-your-mother kind of scared.

have no doubt, gentle reader. if i've appeared at all calm in the last few weeks as you've read this blog, it's only because i'm practiced at telling lies for fun and profit.

this is the genunine thing. it grips my neck, invades my gut, and tries to take my breath away. it is not a place i like to spend a lot of time. but here i am suspended, paralysed not just by fear, but by circumstance and the slow tick of days.

i remarked to my friend rose last night that it was good my house was a mess after holidays, illness and finishing Seventh Son. the much needed cleaning has given me an opportunity to do something other than capitulate to the gut-wrenching waves of terror that periodically sweep from head to toe, and back.

that is good, said my wise friend rose.

i'm terrified, i mentioned to my friend jane the other day. that's good, she said.

it is? i repeated, startled - for a few minutes at least - out of my fear. i could feel my inner optimist peek out of the cover she takes when my inner banshee starts to keen.

terror is a form of an extremely heightened state of awareness, said my wise friend jane. it puts you into just the very place where it becomes possible to do the most impossible things.

and furthermore, the war must end. blessed be.