This week’s writing prompt is:
Phobia
What does that word mean to you? My phobia is spiders. I try and rationalise it to myself. They’re small and here, in the UK, they’re not poisonous so they can’t harm me. But it doesn’t help! You could write about a real phobia, or you could make one up for a gripping story or poem.
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I was not only terrified of fires, it was a real phobia that still affects me to this day.
As a child, I was so terrified of fire that I could not watch anything that might contain a fire. I was sent out of the room when the news was on TV because there were always fires. The film “Towering Inferno” debuted in the theaters when I was a teenager, but I was forbidden to join my friends when they went. My fear of fire was a real phobia.
I would wake up screaming from the nightmares as a small child. I could not articulate precisely what was wrong to my parents at that time. I told them I was seeing my bedroom walls burning, and I couldn’t get out. My parents were mystified. Nothing of a traumatic nature had happened to me as a small child with fire.
I tried past life regression; it showed that I had died in a fire in a previous life. Considering how it affected me, I think it was my last life before this one.
When my husband was stationed at Cherry Point, North Carolina, I got a job at the Officer’s Club on the base. It was a three-story building with a basement that had restrooms, which we sometimes utilized.
I was working in the kitchen one day when I heard the shrieking of the fire alarm. I was looking for it in one of the dining rooms near me, and someone else came running down the hall looking for it, too. I broke out into a cold sweat. We couldn’t find the fire alarm, but the smell and sight of smoke was coming down the hallway toward us by now. We ran to the kitchen to gather everyone up and see how we could exit the building from the back, which faced an area full of trees and a tiny path.
I was panicking, and the person who had taken charge urged me on. I froze, feeling rooted to the spot. The man pulled me into the back dining room, away from the smoke now filling the kitchen. I was shaking uncontrollably, and he never let me go. He realized I was in panic mode and needed help to get moving. I gripped his hand so tight that my knuckles turned white. I stumbled after him.
The doors were locked as always when the room was not in use, and more people began to panic. Finally, someone picked up a chair and threw it through one of the picture windows. Others followed suit.
We started hurrying out of the building towards the path behind it. It was the only way we could go. The path ran alongside the back of the building. The fire had cut off the front, so we had no choice but to head around the back of the building the long way.
We ran along the small path, covering our heads with our hands, as the windows exploded overhead, raining fire and glass down on us. We started choking on the smoke. I was petrified and crying, but the others urged me on. They were not leaving me behind. The building was long, and that was the longest but fastest run I had ever made. The beast of the fire was on our tails.
We finally came out to the front of the building and stared at the fire as it reached further and further. I was cringing as I watched the fire as it spread across part of the building front. An EMT brought me a bottle of water and checked me over for smoke inhalation. I was still shaking, but I knew I was safe now, and I looked around for the man who had brought me out through the burning building and led me around to the front where we would be safe. I wanted to thank him for not giving up on me despite the danger we were all in.
A real-life burning fire to bring out my fears again. The fire brought it all back. I had been choking on the smoke, and now I understand how people die from smoke inhalation. It was hard to breathe through that smoke.
We all got out, thank God! No one got hurt except for smoke inhalation.
I went through a grueling interrogation by Naval Intelligence, along with everyone else. The investigation took several days. After that, I had horrible nightmares. I had sunk back to my childhood fears. That fire was not a mistake. A disgruntled employee set it on purpose in a small office near the restrooms that I had just exited. It was way too close for me.
Tessa –
Advocate for mental health and invisible illnesses
New Author’s Website – http://www.tessadeanauthor.wordpress.com
Author – Old Writing – http://www.finallyawriter.wordpress.com
About my life – http://www.tessacandoit.wordpress.com
Tessa Dean - Author 