Fear is an intelligent entity; it knows how to scar a person and keep them alert at all times. I have experienced fear in my life before, but for some reason, only one keeps hunting my dreams… it visited me in my sleep just now to check on me, to make sure I still remember… for some reason, he thinks I am forgetting.

Five years ago, in 2008, I was robbed… the funny part was that I saw the robber and I talked to him. I used to have a very bad eye sight, too bad that if my old glasses wasn’t the thin pressed type, I would have a bottle’s bottom for glasses and would have my eyes burned when I look at the sun. I thought at the time that the robber was my friend. I talked about what should we do tomorrow and where to have breakfast… he only kept nodding, he may even thought I was on some kind of a drug. I went to bed, woke up later, and found the place clean… no TV, no laptop, no wallet… pretty much anything that can be sold. The police were too incompetent; they could be in it, too.

What have gone was regained; I got new objects. No matter what we lose in our life, we can always find something new and maybe better along the line. But I gained something that is still with me and refuses to leave me be.

My irrational fear only shows itself in my dreams; every now and then, at least once a week, I dream that someone is trying to get inside and steal from me… today, hours ago, I heard someone trying to break through my window, I went to see what it was and I found some kind of a rod breaking what’s left from glass in the window’s margins. When I shouted my demons away, I woke up, my pumping heart played with my ribs like a Xylophone. Regulating my breaths, I welcomed my fear with a simple smile, for I became accustomed to his visits. I made green tea for myself, couldn’t prepare anything for fear, I was out of decaf coffee, his favorite… even fear needs rest from time to time.

Wide awake now, I asked Tobi (yes… I’ll call him Tobi) ‘for five years, why do you still see me?’

He replied ‘You would think that by knowing me for five years we should be friends by now’

‘But I still don’t know you…’

‘Have you taken the effort to do so? Have you ever tried to know me better?’

‘Well… I know you were born five years ago when I was robbed’

‘Do you think I was the result of a mere pathetic robbery? People know me as fear; I existed when emotions existed… I could be the first emotion to emerge from most, if not all, creation’

‘You did exist before that, I admit. But since five years you have become a regular visitor to me. I have no explanation of why would I open my doors to you when it comes to what had happened five years ago’

‘We tend to be blind to what is obvious… have you ever been robbed before?’

‘Not before that day… no’

‘The answer should be obvious, kid… I am really experience. You can let the world portrait me as it pleases, or you can use your own colors to draw what I should be… I am your friend, and I will always be with you.’

The only thing I can do is to live with it… with him; Tobi. Life can be grey if we didn’t know how to color. We should not let fear take over and shape our lives… it exists, but you also exist, too. Fear should be experience. If anything, it should inspire us.

I hope everyone learns to live with their fears. Next time, I’ll be sure to have decaf for when he visits again.

~ A. H. Amin