I’m 34 and Still Afraid of the Dark
And you should be too.
When I was a kid, I used to sleep with a heavy comforter over my feet — no matter the season. I’d keep my legs wrapped up to my knees. Why? Witches, obviously. I knew — knew — that, if I were to lay with my feet exposed for more than a few seconds, a witch would come up from under the bed and eat my feet.
This would be a cute childhood story if it ended there. But twenty-five years later, in the hot-hot summer, I found myself sitting up in bed trying to explain to my partner why I didn’t want to put the winter comforter away. By the suspicious look on her face, you’d think I had another woman rolled up in our sheets. The truth was somehow worse.
“You think witches are going to eat your feet?”
“No — well, I don’t think witches are going to eat my feet. I imagine that witches are going to eat my feet and it scares me.”
She was a pragmatic person. She looked to the end of the bed, then to the side. “Why don’t they want to eat your hands?”
“They might want to eat my hands but that’s why I sleep against the wall.”
“What about this side?” she asked, jerking her thumb behind her.
“Well,” I said, speaking before thinking, “you sleep on that side of the bed.”
