You're Not Afraid of the Dark

You’re not afraid of the dark. Really. You haven’t been for years.
Even so, those times when you’re in a dark room, searching for something in the shadows, and all of a sudden a fear overcomes you, a certainty that there is someone or something right behind you, and it’s coming closer and closer and you tense up and tell your mind to shut up but even so your muscles don’t like listening to your brain, they like listening to your instincts, so you start to leave, find your way to the door, the light switch, anything to put a stop to your growing fear that it’s right behind you. You walk at first, trying to keep your steps even, show it that you’re not afraid but after the first few paces, you lose all pretense of courage and break into a run, your legs pushing off the ground as hard as they can, and you’re flying through the darkness, thinking I’m not going fast enough and you can feel it racing behind you, excited that it gets to chase, and it’s almost there, but the door is so close and you finally reach it, grasping the handle, pushing with all of the force from your sprint and it goes flying open with a loud bang.
The people in the room stare at you. You close the door just as loudly and pretend that you’re angry, sullen, excited, anything but scared, something else that would account for you making such an entry.
Because you’re not afraid of the dark. Really, you’re not. You haven’t been for years. Except for those few times when you’re in the shadows alone and the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you whisper to the ghosts in the air “runrunrun.”