Daily post: Mi casa isn’t su casa

DAILY PROMPT: FEAR FACTOR
People are afraid of all kinds of things: spiders, the dark, or being enclosed in small spaces. Tell us about your greatest fear — rational or irrational.

There are a few things I don’t like inside my house.

Crickets, for example. Think about it: you’ve just hopped into bed, the light’s out, and from somewhere inside your four walls a cricket starts that cheerful, lying chirrup, pretending it’s a friendly chap just come to say goodnight, when you know full well it has that indefinably slugsy look that speaks of underworld secrets too horrific to share. You imagine it exploring your sleeping face, slimy body slithering down your cheek, prying legs probing your nostrils, a quick hop onto your closed lids…

And then there are praying mantises. Harmless, you might think, but have you looked into their beady eyes? Have you studied their long, predatory legs? Can you imagine those legs whispering their way up your arms and around your neck…

I’m not exactly frightened of these things. I’m bigger than they are, I can trap them under a jar, slide in the paper lid and pop them over the balcony to find their own houses and leave mine alone. A human intruder would be far worse. I doubt crickets and mantises actively wish me ill, but humans don’t breach the fortifications without fell purpose in mind. But still…

On the whole, though, I prefer the head-in-the-sand approach. Far easier to live with.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/28/prompt-fear-factor/