The Wages of Fear
It’s a strange business, always fearing something but still being surprised when it happens. You do expect it, after a fashion; every day you go over everything in your head about how and why and when and what you might have done that might cause it to come about, but then it takes you at unawares and you are at a complete loss. Through the motions you went, a sort of attempt at casting a spell, an act of everyday ritual to prevent the object of your fear being realized and when it comes to nought there is no explanation to be found in your theology. The gods have abandoned you, it would seem, they have forsaken and condemned you; or perhaps you find the courage to disbelieve. Yet the outcome remains the same: that which you sought to prevent, which you sought to ward off, even forestall your own bringing about, unfolds and you have neither recourse nor understanding. Maybe it wasn’t your fault; maybe you didn’t cause it happen; maybe you did nothing wrong; maybe you didn’t fail; maybe you’ll never know.
But then you are hardly blameless. Surely clinging to superstition and silly hopes in the absence of something real, something concrete, an actual protective measure, preventative action and not some cargo cult, would have served you better. You had reasons to fear all along—must have since now you are here—even as you told yourself otherwise—how else were you caught by surprise when it overtook you? Yet you trusted in your own foolishness.
No, no, you must not be too harsh, too hard on yourself, for it can scarcely be said that you knew any better. Ignorance, simple ignorance, has brought you here. You may have been foolish to believe it would work, but believe you nonetheless did. Perhaps some might say if ignorance is an explanation that does not make it an excuse. In time, you’ll have to decide that for yourself and come to terms with it, whichever way you land. On some level, you were right but could make nothing of being right, nor even truly convince yourself—and that is a special kind of foolishness. A special kind of foolishness indeed.
Let’s talk about the fear itself, hmm? This fear that has stalked you at some remove. A strange sort of fear, was it not—is it not? You still have it with you now, even as what it is you feared would come to pass has already passed. It’s a calm and quiet fear—pathetic almost. Certainly it is nothing so immediate nor anything so grandiose as to make a tragedy of your circumstances. Not the desperate visceral terror of impending doom, not some horror at a glimpse beyond the world as it seems. Ha, no, neither so real nor unreal, neither animal nor cosmic. A very dull and very human fear if one which hardly seems to recommend one as a human being. Almost imperceptible at times, but omnipresent and when you are alone with it, does it not make you feel so hollow? Oh, but it’s nothing, so mundane, so much of a nothing, it seems almost unworthy of notice; and yet there is something more than that, isn’t there? You fear yourself, is that not it?
So now it has already happened and there is no use anymore in the fear that clings to you. It is a dead but undead fear. Now there is only the end, the very thing which you sought to escape, the thing of which you were for so long afraid. Now you must allow it to reverberate through your life and must make your peace with it—or else. It’s time to pay the price. What can you do? Oh, you must go on. You must. It’s time to pay the price.
You still don’t understand, do you? That’s ok. That’s why you’re here.