Shallow Roots
On TV, a lifelong herpetophobe reclines in a bathtub full of cobras. After ten whole minutes, she climbs out, cured.
"Fear's roots are shallow," she proclaims to raucous applause. You think, Yes! If she can do it, I can too.
Trouble is, no one takes you seriously: "I suffer from
[sciurophobia] /
[coulrophobia] /
[potnonomicaphobia]!" you declare to all who'll listen, praying for some sympathy, some act of solidarity.
But it's all a joke to them. Can't they see that
[flashes of fluffy tails and scurrying paws among treetops] /
[rainbow wigs and red noses, honking horns and floral-lapel spritzes] /
[gnarly tubers, bespeckled with a thousand blinking eyes like vengeful biblical angels] instill you with wordless terror?
A revelation: it traces back to that formative moment when you discovered
[that deranged critter trapped in Grandma's basement, emaciated, running in circles, tiny maw frothing] /
[that home video your parents kept hidden in a locked cabinet; their wigs, their makeup, their writhing naked bodies] /
[that forgotten spud—its sprouting skin covered in keratinous nodules so like cancerous growths]. The memory suffocates you.
Desperately, you rally your courage, recalling the Snake-Tub Lady: a single shock-exposure eradicated her fear.
So, determined yet alone, you
[intern at the exotic animal shelter. Hands trembling, you gently pet each squirrel, imagining it the world's ugliest puppy] /
[enroll in clown school. You do yourself up in pasty white maquillage, complete with rouged cheeks and an ironic blue tear] /
[creep into the neighbors' potato garden and burrow, slithering, until you're nestled in blackness among shallow roots].
Now, around you,
[arboreal rodents chitter; you close your eyes and discorporate into a cascade of tumbling acorns, ready to be cached away underground] /
[classmates, clad in motley, respond to your practiced japes with genuine guffaws of laughter. You feel nothing; you've buried all emotions beneath thick layers of white paint] /
[Solanum tuberosum stems grow fat and round, smashing tightly against you, until you can't tell where you end and they begin. You swallow a lungful of wet dirt and find the soil nourishing].In the end, is it so bad when
[they gather up your pieces in tiny paws, frittering you off to] /
[your heart gives way during your debut performance, speeding you toward] /
[shoots emerge from your eyelids, snaking into the dirt and tangling you in] the cold earth's welcoming embrace?
Author Bio
P.G. Streeter lives with his wife and two sons in Maryland, where he teaches high school English and philosophy. He writes fiction and poetry because he can't figure out any other way to get all the strange and disturbing dreams out of his head.