My Biggest Fear

Tonight my biggest fear (now my ex-biggest fear) came true, and nothing happened.  Slinking among the nether reaches of my mind, along with what if I die?  what if I’ve already died and this murk of uncertainty, this frantic limbo of futility is my eternal punishment?—has lurked till now a more distinct fear: What if I walk on stage, open my mouth before a full house, and nothing comes out?

[This is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here for the first episode, or here for the previous one.]

What if I just stand there, swaying?

Well, tonight, stone dumb, I closed my eyes and smoothed the vestment.  The skirt swished like a tablecloth around my legs and I forgot where I was.  Or no, that’s not right.  I didn’t care where I was!  The hundred-some heads expecting a transcendental balm for their suffering, or at least some answers from me, sputtered:  What the hell was going on?  Why weren’t they getting what they came for?

Again I opened my mouth and closed it.  A widening ripple of impatience fanned through the crowd.  Mass indignation developed tooth and nail.  The mood in the room took the form of an animal on the loose, snarling and rank, loping through the aisles.  Instinctively, I tore off the fatuous toga-thing and stuffed it under the stage chair.  But by the time I turned around, flexing my legs, ready to fend for my life, the first signs of riotous anger were already dwindling to a few listless harrumphs.  The wild unstoppable beast vaporized before my eyes into mutterings—into mere rustlings in the back row.

Prompting me finally to find my voice, and yell:  “Hey, come on!  Don’t do this!”
I crouched in front of them, hands extended, screaming:  “Rip into me, why don’t you?”

I waited red-faced and huffing.  “What kind of messiah can I be,” I tried to reason with them, “if no mob of furious, tortured souls rises up to destroy me?”

Nothing.  They just gazed at me as if in a trance and then—worse—the unthinkable—they folded their chairs and got down on their knees.  They put their hands together and closed their eyes.

Big joke. I even said, “What is this?  Some kind of joke?” 

But they didn’t answer.  They didn’t budge.

“Get out of here,” I yelled.  “Go on!  Go away!” I screamed:  “Get the fuck out of here!  Now!”

When would this end?  Why didn’t they leave?

And then it dawned on me—I could just go.  Except if I headed for the front door, they might crush me from all sides.  Hadn’t I just commanded them to rip into me?

So, I inched off the stage slowly, as slowly as if trying to sneak out of a lion’s lair (the worshipful, penitent animal being just as dangerous as the savage angry one).  I backed off the stage, and out, down the fire escape.

An alarm sounded and several security guards came running, but I got away.  I ran to the lake, the wind battering me from all directions.  Sand stuck in my nostrils, under my eyelids, inside my mouth. My shop, my life, everything I do—have nothing to do with me anymore.

(Click here to read the next episode.)