Anxiety There is a slight tapping on the girl’s desk. Just a mild echo of fingers bouncing up and down, up and down upon the neatly finished wooden surface. The desk consumes an area much too large in relation to the already cramped bedroom. The girl’s eyes are clamped shut, almost an attempt at isolating herself from the ostracism of the outside world. By the time she realizes that it is indeed her own restless hand causing the noise, the tapping has transformed instead into an unwarranted symphony. It is feedback into microphones and the scraping of cutlery on ceramic dinner plates. The tapping of her fingers desist, but a new tightly wound knot secures itself around the girl’s stomach. Ideas gnaw through the girl’s brain and fly out of her head only to plaster themselves onto the walls enclosing her. The ideas reconstruct themselves and take new, physical forms. They are demons perched watching and waiting to prey on her. Doubt, a short and portly fellow, sprouts devilish wings and swoops down on the girl’s desk, snatching her pencil away from her grasp. An impish cackle billows down from above, only further interrupting the girl’s progress. Frustration slithers along the walls of the room. Although initially quite small, he seems to grow exponentially each time he completes the circuit. The room is brimming with him, a reddish tinge simmering beneath a smoky gray exterior. Everything he touches is left tainted with a smidgen of dusty black. Fear much prefers creeping to slithering. He is like Peter Pan’s shadow: hard to define and hard to catch. He has a particular fondness for chasing around Doubt and Frustration, prodding and provoking them when they begin to still. Fear likes to catch the girl unprepared and watch, laughing, as she mentally tears herself apart. Even when all the other’s have gone, Fear lingers behind, stealthy and typically unmentioned, his slim, but muscular figure disguising itself in the cracks on the ceiling. Self-worth, despite usually being obedient and loyal, hides in the corner, desperately scrambling at the floorboards as if to tunnel through them and out of the room. Her ears are flat against her head, contradicting the angelically grayish white fur sticking up haphazardly, resisting taming. The scratching issues a chaotic and deadly noise, unpleasant to any ear. The bedroom stinks of betrayal. The girl forces her eyes open, finally mustering enough strength to confront her demons. Her eyesight burns holes in them until them are nothing but ash on the walls. They’ll return, of course. Like phoenixes they will rise again from the murky soot, ready to reclaim their victim. But their victory day will not be today. Self-worth joins her once more, and the girl retires, finally, to her bed. The tapping now a dull drumbeat in her ears, the echo of anxiety. © Dana L. 2013