It was supposed to symbolize me conquering my fears. I was doing the Madonna as she appears crushing a snake under her feet. One night in mid-winter, I was working on my favorite hobby, painting. I overcame my fear of spiders, centipedes, slugs, heights, thunderstorms, cute guys, and all the other little things that made the left side of my chest pound like the drummer in a Christian rock band and my throat constrict like a deflating balloon. But I realized the cute guy was just that: a cute guy nothing upstairs.

He pushed his hand through his thick, floppy black hair a lot, looked down at me from his 6’3” height and smiled knowingly as he tried to hold my interest. I nervously approached the cute guy at school and started a conversation. I walked outside during a thunderstorm and reveled in the feel of the fresh, clean rain changing my clothes from a warm dry cotton to a cooling blanket of water. I befriended the centipede family that lives behind our trashcan, feeding them food scraps from the kitchen. Why was I afraid of insects, of thunderstorms, of things that go BUMP in the night? What is the purpose of fear? My quest for a life without fear went on. I climbed so high that when I sat at the very top, looking thirty feet down, the bare limbs on which I perched swayed in the wind and I almost fell to the hard, frozen ground below. I forced myself to scale the highest tree in our backyard, a feat I could never attempt before. I’ll never do that again because the slime stuck to my hands like peanut butter does to the roof of your mouth, and it took five minutes to wash the goo off. I picked it off with my hands and carried it outside, forcing myself to quit being afraid. I found a slug edging slowly up the door frame, waddling like obese people do. I could crush it with the palm of my hand. It’s just a tiny bug, I told myself, ignoring the scientific falsity of my words. I let a Black Widow spider sprint across my leg one evening as I sat on the cold cement of the porch steps, drinking a strawberry milkshake. Fear was overtaking my life and creeping into everything around me, so I decided to dispel all my fears for once and for all. Somewhere around the age of fifteen or sixteen, I reached the adolescent period where, instead of going through a phase of insecurity, I went through a phase of confidence.

I kept myself locked up like a blood-red ruby in a strongbox, afraid. I was afraid of making myself vulnerable. I was afraid of talking to the cute guy across the aisle in school. I was afraid of lightning, thunder, rain. I used to be afraid of slugs, and centipedes that scurried across the floor faster than a shadow. You can find all the writing contest stories here. Penny and was part of our 2022 Fall Writing Contest.

Blood ruby strongbox