The Fear Read online

The Fear

  Mark James Wooding

  Copyright 1987 Mark James Wooding

  All Rights Reserved

  ******

  Death: the great unknown. One of the greatest fears in life is that of death. No one living knows what happens afterward. The only trips are one way. What makes it so frightening? Everyone must die, so why put oneself through so much anxiety beforehand? Maybe it's simply the fear of the unknown. Perhaps it's fear of eternal punishment. Maybe it's the apprehension that death may be what it appears to be: the cessation of conscious existence. Or possibly it's just instinct. Who can say for certain why it is such a fearsome thought? Certainly not I; nor can I claim that I've never felt the terror which strikes the heart of man when death is near, which brings me to my story.

  My life has been a fortunate one, and from my birth I've never wanted for anything that I could not have. My parents were wealthy, and as I passed into my manhood the benefits which accrue from such a situation provided me with a great deal of financial security; so much so that any labor that I've done, mental or physical, was done wholly for the purpose of entertainment, and never out of necessity.

  I married young, in my mid-twenties, and the security of marriage offered me the balance which my life so sorely lacked while I was single. The woman that I married was sweet and young and beautiful, and filled my life with such joy that I never was dissatisfied with my lot.

  In the eyes of some, to be rich means to live a life of idleness, but my wife and I never indulged much in that self-rotting sin. I usually occupied myself with matters of business or sports, mainly golf, and my wife devoted a great deal of her time, and our money, to charities, particularly those concerning the basic sustenance of the economically underprivileged.

  I had never had any major complaints with her projects until one day when she told me that we were going to have some homeless people to stay with us, in our own house, for the night. To this I objected. That those people needed help, yes, I could see that; and for her to have provided some sort of shelter for them, perhaps in a mission, or even in a room in one of our outbuildings, would have been fine, but our home? She said that it was far nobler for us to share our home than to put them elsewhere. She said that we wouldn't put our friends in a garage or a storage shed, would we? I said we might. She said we wouldn't, so why put these poor unfortunates in those places? These people were only friends that we hadn't met yet, she assured me.

  I agreed that they were probably fine human beings, and might even help us if the situations were reversed, but to take strangers into our own home, particularly persons who frequent a coarse environment, and possibly even coarser associates, was too dangerous to allow. Nonsense, she said. She pleaded her case. I argued mine. In the end she won, as she always did in such differences of opinion. How could I resist her? I loved her too much. She was my major weakness, my vulnerability. If you'd known her you'd understand why.

  At five o'clock in the afternoon they were delivered to our home by another member of one of my wife's organizations. My wife escorted our guests to separate bathrooms in order for them to shower and change into clean clothes. My wife's friend lectured me on what a fine, Christian act we were doing by taking these people in while the shelters were so crowded, and that our rewards in Heaven would surely reflect our actions on Earth. I asked her if she was having any homeless people stay at her house also. She evaded the question, but I pressed it. She finally admitted that she wasn't, as her husband would never allow such a thing. I said I thought as much, and left her to lecture herself. She departed shortly thereafter.

  Resigned to the inevitable, I joined my wife and our guests in the parlor where she was entertaining them with some conversation before dinner was served. Normally we didn't commence eating until at least seven, but as our house guests were probably hungry she had ordered it to be prepared and served earlier.

  She introduced me to the gentlemen who were to stay with us, and I smiled, and said that I was pleased to meet them. I sat down and listened to my wife engage them all in the conversation. She was extraordinarily skillful at that. She could manipulate a discussion so that no one felt left out and each felt that he had said quite a lot, when actually she did most of the talking. It never ceased to amaze me how she did it. Being familiar with my moods, and thoughtful of my feelings, she left me out of the conversation as much as politeness allowed, and I did not speak unless spoken to.

  The call to dinner finally arrived, and we left the parlor and strode to the dining room. Our guests expressed their admiration for the fine furnishings with which our house was adorned. My wife gracefully accepted the compliments, and bade our guests to be seated. They did so, and I must confess that the hunger with which they gazed at the food before them, and the eagerness to partake of it which they at first fought so hard to restrain, but which they were finally unable to resist, aroused my compassion.

  There was more than enough food for all present, and all left the table satisfied. One of them commented that it was the first time he had been full in over a year. At this point my wife suggested that I show our guests into the library, offer them something to smoke, and get better acquainted with them while she took care of some business. I didn't think that that was such a good idea, but I said that it was, and smiled, and led them into the library.

  Neither my wife nor I smoke, so normally there is no form whatsoever of tobacco in the house, but my wife had purchased some cigarettes and cigars for the pleasure of our guests, the presence of which items she had informed me before dinner. I despise the odor of burning tobacco, but I could tell from the avidity with which our guests took their smokes that it was best not to discourage them from smoking. I did resolve, however, to have the room fumigated upon their departure from my house.

  The personalities of the gentlemen my wife had invited over were quite distinct. One of them was quiet and pensive. He spent most of his time looking at the books on the shelves about the room, and didn't pay much mind to either myself or his companions, if such they were. Another of them was loud and gruff. He said whatever came to his mind in whatever manner it occurred to him to say it. I will give him credit for refraining from vulgarities while my wife was around, but with her inhibiting presence gone his language was colored by the crude vocabulary of the uneducated. The third of our guests was of a pacific and amiable nature, and expressed lucid opinions on a variety of subjects about which he obviously knew nothing, but he did it in such a friendly and inoffensive way that no one seemed to mind.

       They told me a little bit about their backgrounds, the gist of which I don't recall, and we talked of a few popular topics before my wife arrived, about twenty minutes later. When she entered the room she suggested that we watch some television, to which I heartily agreed, and we went to the living room. Each of our guests wanted to watch something different, but my wife skillfully maneuvered them into agreeing on another program entirely which she convinced them was far more interesting, convincing me in the process, and we watched it.

       When the hour of ten had rolled around she suggested that we retire for the evening, and the motion was agreed upon by all. She showed the guests to their rooms, and my wife and I retired to our own. She informed me, as we undressed, that the hour for breakfast would be nine o'clock in order to give our guests plenty of time to sleep in nice warm beds in the privacy of their own rooms, a luxury none of them had enjoyed for quite some time. She hinted to me that it might be a good idea, though, if I got up at about six on the chance that any of our guests should arise early. I nodded acquiescence, and as we got into bed I could feel that my love and respect for her increased with each day.

  The night passed in peaceful and dreamy comfort, as e
very night with her by my side could not fail to do, until I awoke upon hearing a loud sound. Startled, I looked at my wife, whose angelic head rested on my shoulder, and saw that she had not been disturbed by the noise. Very gently, I eased my arm out from under her. Successful in that operation, I got out of bed, donned my robe, and left her alone while I went to seek the cause of the sound.

  I quietly opened our bedroom door and listened for any repetitions of the disturbance. Hearing none I ventured out into the hallway. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall, so all of the guest rooms were in one direction, with the guest bathroom at the other end of the hall. Looking at the doors to the guest rooms I realized that all were ajar. This seemed odd to me, for when my wife and I had gone to bed they were all closed.

  Gingerly, I stepped down the hallway to the nearest of the guest rooms, pausing every two or three seconds to listen.

  On arriving at the door I halted, and I channeled every bit of my attention to my ears. I still heard nothing but the normal sounds of our house at night.

  I edged myself between the door and the frame, and tried looking in.