lately, i remember

It is the midnight hour, and my bed is quiet and warm amidst the torrent that lashes against the sides of the house; and nonetheless I shudder because I am cold on the inside. When I was little, I used to think the flash and the growl of thunder rattling the windows was actually a band of tigers, roaring and fighting to get into my room. I can remember sitting under my quilt, just as I am now, but with eyes wide with terror, wondering how to get them to go away, or find someone to save me. I can remember finally pulling up enough courage to slip past the door and go running down the dark hallway to escape. I’d come barging into my parent’s room, and crawl into the empty side where Dad sometimes slept. Of course there were no tigers in Oklahoma. My mother tried again and again to make me understand this. But without fail… every summer thunderstorm after dark, I’d find myself waking up, hearing the growling, and seeing the striped faces at my window in a flash of lightning.

I’m grown now. My imagination plagues me still. But I know that tigers cannot get me here. Still the rain lashing against my windows fills me with a sense of dread that I can’t shake; an unrelenting fear, that plagues me from my childhood.