Somebody's eyes

My mother called me the other night.

Eleven seventeen.

My ringer was too loud and I answered it quickly.

"Hello?"
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."
"Are you safe?"
"Yes."
"I just had a feeling to call you?"
"I'm fine"
"What are you doing?"
"About to go to bed"
"Okay, well, be safe"

I quickly remembered that when I came home the doors had been unlocked so I sent my friend to search my house for intruders and although they found no one I still lay in bed tossing and turning all night with visions of darkly dressed men approaching me silently. I could feel their hands creeping around my neck, over my dresser, through my things. I could smell their breath on my face and down my back. As soon as I would open my eyes they would jump behind me and I'd turn to find them, but they'd be gone only to torment me later.

The next day when I saw her I asked

"Why did you call?"
"I just felt like I needed to. It's strange, a long time ago I had a lady in our ward who called me three weeks in a row and asked me if I was okay. Each time I said I was fine and then the third week, something really bad happened"

Before I could ask what our conversation was cut short by my joyful niece, but the fear ensued. Instead of calming me I became panicked and for the first time in my life began to understand my mother's paranoia attacks and our mad midnight run aways from my childhood.

"We have to go, grab your things children, we're leaving" We'd scurry into the van as silently as we could and sleep calmly, vaguely aware that there may be someone after us, but too uninformed to be truly scared. Always more a misconceived memory than a reality in my life and never the same in the morning. Generally in a different place when we woke up than when we went to sleep.

Are fears transferable like 25¢ tattoos? Or once you recycle them do they come back the same, yet different? Will I be scared every night from now on when I used to roam the streets fearless and brave and naive? Who can really say...