What are you afraid of?
Don’t say spiders.
Don’t say heights.
Don’t say dying.
Those are instincts, not fears.
I’m asking about the thing you avoid thinking about when the room is quiet.
The thought you interrupt with television.
The memory you drown with noise.
The question you answer too quickly.
Try again.
What are you afraid of?
Being forgotten?
Being alone?
Being unloved?
Closer.
Most people aren’t afraid of darkness.
They’re afraid of what becomes visible when there are no distractions left.
Because eventually, everyone is left alone with themselves.
No audience.
No excuses.
No rewritten history.
Just the voice that has been waiting patiently.
The one that knows.
The one that remembers.
The one that was there.
Maybe that’s the real fear.
Not that other people will discover who you are.
That you will.
That one day all the explanations stop working.
All the justifications collapse.
All the doors you’ve kept locked swing open at once.
And standing behind them is every truth you thought you escaped.
Still waiting.
Exactly where you left it.
So I’ll ask one last time.
What are you afraid of?
And why did the answer change while you were reading this?