Length: 1000 words
Tense: habitual
POV: 3rd
This story is entirely exposition, and wholly character-based. I hope it's still engaging enough to hold your interest to the end. I know it's a bad idea to ramble too long without scene or dialogue, but I also see no other way to present this story. It's my shortest yet, though, so at least that's a redeeming value.
Jacques Nzikobankunda is afraid of the dark. When the sun set the world transformed, and the shadows crept out of the night. No streetlight was bright enough, no fire warm enough, to coax Jacques out of his home between those first uncertain hours of twilight and the yellow burst of dawn over the hills’ silhouettes. Jacques never turned off his lights. When the power went, as it inevitably did, he would crawl into his bed and quail in the covers like a child. He would wait, immobilized, for salvation.
Jacques is afraid of the wind. He cannot bear storms, with their uncertainty and their ferocity. When the wind would pick up and the rain would hammer down Jacques would stand in the entry, shaking. He would hear the doors rattle, and the wind whip around the house. Sometimes a shingle would fall, and then Jacques’s back would straighten, his muscles tense. He would wait for the roof to fall.
Jacques is afraid of knives. He cannot bear to use them. He fears their sting, but worse, the smooth feeling of a sharp edge sliding against fingers. He would dine with a fork and a spoon. Jacques does not like to go to restaurants, because the knives are always laid there, on the placemat before him. When Jacques would go out he would lift the napkin, ever so delicately, and let the long, straight silver slide carefully off. He would never touch it. Sometimes the waiters would come by, carrying stacks of trays, and instinctively Jacques would duck in toward the table. He would imagine the waiter tripping, the stack of trays tilting, and maybe a knife would come down, falling like rain, and slash into Jacques’s foolishly exposed neck.
Jacques is afraid of cars. He is afraid of how fast they move, and how powerful they are, and how hard to maneuver. Jacques never learned to drive. He would walk everywhere, to the market or to work. When he had to cross the street he would always wait until it was completely empty – on Main he would sometimes have to wait a while. He would cross in the middle of the street. At the corners cars would sometimes whip a turn, seeming to come out of nowhere. At a corner, there would be two streets to check and four directions to balance. When Jacques crossed in the middle of the street he would run, stoic and determined, like a marathon runner making the last sprint to the finish.
Jacques is afraid of doctors. He would never go to the hospital unless he was close to dying, and even then he would be reluctant. He would wait in the emergency room with a fear bordering on hysteria, so that the other patients might think him a psychiatric case instead of a man with a broken spine. When the doctors came for him he would first back away, until worse judgment urged him forward. He would never submit to anesthesia. He would watch the operation with wide eyes, grimacing against the terrible pain, but he would watch. Jacques feared the doctors even outside, and he would back away from them as they passed him in the street. It was an irrational fear, but none the less potent.
Jacques is afraid of heights. He would never stand on the edge of a precipice – sure the wind would drive him over in a great gust, or that the earth would give out beneath him. He would scarcely climb higher than the second story of any tall building. He knew, one day, that an earthquake would topple it, a tornado would blow it down, or a plane would collide with the base. Jacques would never have dared get on an airplane.
Jacques is afraid of language. He is afraid of the arbitrary designations and the limits they impose. He would never understand why, for instance, French has a distinction between race and course, but English has only race. He is afraid of the power of speech to control thinking. He would wonder about it often, but always in vain, for language itself would inescapably become the medium of his contemplation. He would grow furious if language was used against him, to append to his denomination some arbitrary -phobia, or some other meaningless diagnosis that could change that mental image of his being stored in others’ minds.
Jacques is afraid of crowds. He would always avoid the spots where the people trod, and when near large groups he would let them pass ahead at some distance. When a large gathering proceeded down the street Jacques would duck into the nearest store, and spend some time perusing the articles for sale. He would avoid celebrations. He would avoid rallies, afraid of the loudspeaker and its immense volume, so cutting he can hear from the steps of his own house a protest in front of City Hall. Jacques was a Christian, but he would never go to church.
Jacques is afraid of the radio. He would imagine all those invisible beams, passing through rock and flesh to reach the receiver. He would try to feel them sometimes, try to imagine a million tiny particles flowing through his soul unseen but not invisible. Waves of energy, unstoppable, rippling through the universe. He would try to understand the physics of it, but he would become petrified, skeptical, or furious. He would see the radio towers as a violation of his entire being.
Jacques is afraid of memory. The awareness of memory implies the ability to forget.
Jacques is afraid of God. He would stay awake at night, staring into the halo around the bulb overhead, and think of justice. He is afraid of God because of His almighty power. Jacques would not hear God when he clasped his hands in prayer. He would ask questions, beg and confess, and still the silence would endure. He would wonder. When asked why he did not involve himself in the faith community, Jacques would say he had stopped believing. But in his heart he knew the Almighty would never leave him be. Jacques would deny God only because he feared to speak His name lest it would summon Him. Jacques is not yet ready.
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