The Daily Fear

This is a humorous take on what it's like to live with anxiety. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

The Daily Fear

By Ashton Macaulay

     Mark walks out the front door and is only flustered for a moment, as thousands of ways he could die assault him from every angle. Sunlight beats down on him, hot and oppressive. It’s one of the last days in August, and the world has taken it upon itself to become a hellish landscape of heat-death and dried grass. The crumbling concrete steps of his house radiate the heat back at him, providing no respite. Too much of this sun and I’m going to die of skin cancer, he thinks with a nonchalant fear.

     He resolves to be quick about his outdoor voyage and starts on the path to the street. A set of creepers seems to be doing well despite the drought. The world is about to pop off at any second, and the vines are still managing to thrive. Won’t do them any good if the fault line under us ruptures. He had read about this in the paper the day before, and gone into an hour of earthquake survival preparations before realizing that it was no use and he would die before the disaster happened anyway.

 The vine is wrapped around the foundation of one corner of the house, and he thinks that someday it will grow so tight that the wood will crumble. On that day, he will be in bed, right under the heaviest beam of the house, just in time to be crushed into a red jelly. My family will be so sad. There’s no emotion to the thought, it’s just business as usual.

    He’s through the yard and onto the sidewalk, a small victory in itself. It’s not that he’s an agoraphobic, he’s not, the doctors have checked for every possible disorder. The world whirls around him and he’s sitting on an uncomfortable leather couch, in a lofted psychology office, above a local coffee shop. A man with a white goatee and a teardrop scar under his right eye is regarding Mark thoughtfully.

     “What would happen if you got sunburned?”

     “I would likely get cancer later on in life,” says Mark, shifting uncomfortably at the idea of spending even a minute hooked up to medical machines.

     “Mhmm.” The therapist nods, as if this is exactly what he expected. “And what would happen if you got cancer?”

     “I would have to get radiation, it would make me sick. I imagine it would all be very sad, and my family would go broke in a feeble attempt to keep me alive.”

     “And then what would happen?”

     “I suppose I would die.”

     “And then what?”

The psychologist thinks he’s on the verge of a breakthrough, but the penultimate fear of death is enough to send Mark’s mind into overdrive. His heart beats fast in his chest and he feels lightheaded. Shit, that feels weird. It had to be an aneurism. Any second now, it’s going to reach my brain and I’m going to fall over dead. The thought pleases him, because if he dies on the couch, the therapist will have to get rid of it, and then he might buy a more comfortable one. At least my death wasn’t a complete waste, he thinks, breathing deep and waiting for oblivion to take him.

Mark does not die. Instead, he realizes that he’s been daydreaming about another time when he thought he was going to die. “Remember; keep yourself grounded in the moment. Don’t let the thought become an obsession.” The therapist’s words echo through his head as if they are playing on a loud speaker. Is it normal to hear a therapist’s voice in your head? Mark often finds himself narrating his own life through the guise of characters he has created. He thinks it’s the sign of a brain tumor, but no one will know that, because he’s too scared to be tested...and his insurance will only pay for two MRIs a year without serious injury.

A crack in the pavement causes Mark to stumble, and he thanks luck that he didn’t impale himself on the metal pipe sticking out of the ground. His throat closes and chokes him for a moment at the thought of it. A beautiful woman walking by provides a brief distraction from his delirium. Fear was a strong motivator, but sex was stronger. He often mused that men wouldn’t mind sharing the fate of the praying mantis. Decapitation is worth it, so long as it is preceded by an orgasm, he thinks, and chuckles aloud.

The woman looks back at him with a glare. Well that probably seemed creepy. She pulls out her cell phone to call the motorcycle-riding boyfriend that she no doubt has. Mark can hear his furious tones from ten feet away. She hangs up and gives him the finger. Minutes later, Mark is greeted by the rumbling of a biker gang pulling up beside him. There is clanking as the bikers pull out various whips, chains, and knives in a menacing, but well-coordinated gesture.

A large man with biceps the size of tree trunks steps off the bike and removes his helmet to reveal a handsome, but scarred face. “It was all just a misunderstanding,” Mark tries to say, but the man pulls out a gun and shoots him in the head. Blood splatters on the wood fence behind him, and he takes the long, dizzy fall to the ground. Why pull out the knife if he was going to shoot me? That just seems wasteful, Mark thinks as everything fades to black.

Only it doesn’t, because the woman didn’t notice his laugh and has continued to walk on her merry way. A prickle has crept down Mark’s spine, but he can see the sub shop on the next block and that makes everything ok. He wonders what kind of sandwich he will buy. In his heart, he wants something loaded with meat, bacon, and cheese, but his head reminds him that those are all contributors to heart disease, and with his family history, he can’t afford it.

The truth is that most of Mark’s family either drank themselves to death, or found themselves in the grip of unfortunate circumstances. There was nothing to it more than simple odds, but to the frightened mind, patterns are easy to find. A grilled chicken with vinegar and vegetables. It’s not an exciting sandwich, but it will provide the sustenance he needs to get through the day, and is unlikely to cause spontaneous combustion of his coronary valves.

Mark walks to the sub shop door without incident and steps into the refreshing air condition. Success, I survived the walk from my house and live to eat another meal. It’s a dull happiness that grips him, but it’s better than the other thing. Mark steps up to the counter and looks down at the many vegetables that will soon adorn his bread. He orders and watches as a greasy man in a tank top makes his sandwich. Everything is fine until he notices a questionable piece of spinach has made its way into bed with his meat and vinegar. Mark spends the next five hours worrying about the food poisoning he surely has from it…