Fear Of The Dark

When I was about three-years’-old, my mother stuck a height chart to the wall. It had a picture of a giraffe with purple eyelids. One day, I was looking at it from across the room and I had the impression that it was looking back at me. Even when I moved, I felt that its eyes were following me. That odd sense of being watched developed into a fear of the dark, a curious sense that when I focused attention on something, it focused back on me. Now, when I get that feeling, it tends to be when there’s a small creature hiding in the room, like a mouse or a rat.