071. Your fears are keeping me awake

Aaliyah lived next to the River of Fear. Her flat was small and mouldy, but the rest was cheap and the view had been pretty, at least until the legend got around town. They said, mostly in hushed voices, that if you held one of the smooth riverstones in both hands, whispered your deepest fear into it and threw it in the river, the currents would carry your worries away.

So every night, Aaliyah would lie awake and listen to the most terrible things the townsfolk could imagine.

I’m afraid of cockroaches, one whispered. And about what will happen once I graduate. I’m worried I won’t be the son that a father would dream about.

And then there was a thud as the stone hit the surface and the river sucked the rock under.

I’m scared that I have lost part of myself again, a lady said, hurling a larger stone into the water. And that looking for it again will mean I lose everything, even the person I love the most.

I don’t want to die, someone whispered. Plop. Suck. Silence.

I hurt the people I love. Plop. Over and over. Plop. And I’m scared they will leave me.

Aaliyah lay and stared at her ceiling and tried not to listen. She imagined shapes in the shadows over her bed. On nights when the river was busy, the shadows seemed more threatening.

I’m scared that I won’t remember the things my mum taught me, someone said. Or that one day, I won’t be able to imagine her anymore.

Plop.

I’m frightened of being alone.

Suck.

I don’t think anyone will love me.

Silence.

People always said they felt lighter after they’d been to the river. Like they could breathe and sleep and dream again. Somehow, they said, it had forgiven them their fears.

But Aaliyah had a fear of her own.

She couldn’t say why, but when she looked in the river, it seemed dark. Like it wasn’t absorbing the burden of the fears, it was feeding on them. One day, when too many fear-stones piled up on its floor, it would rise and flood her flat. If the fears got bad enough, it might even drown her.