Fear Factor Part 1

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.” Julius Caesar, II, ii, 32.   William Shakespeare.

The Test

Well into the math exam on Linear Equations, the room was packed with stressed out teenagers. It was silent except of the feint sounds of lead pencils scratching out answers on paper.

Adding to the pressure cooker, a strict no calculator rule for this test was being enforced by their ancient and strict math teacher, Mrs Gimley.

Time and dull students had not been kind to Mrs Gimley, for her face resembled a brown paper bag which had been crumpled and flattened out again. And her hair was white as bleached bones in the desert. She did herself no favors by wearing it out in the most unflattering style—wild and free—like her hero, Einstein.

Tessa’s heart sank because she loved her calculator and the answers it willingly surrendered. It ranked second only to her mobile phone.

She was three quarters of the way done, wondering why the letter x seemed to be the most absent-minded letter in the alphabet. They were always trying to find it.

As Tess nutted out the value for x using simultaneous equations, she felt something brush across her left shin.

She heard a high pitched scream. A second later, through the sudden brain fog that descended, she realized the sound had escaped from her own mouth.

Twenty sets of eyes zeroed in her direction.

Stifled laughter rippled from her class mates.

Instinctively, Tessa’s arm shot out. She pointed to the intruder scurrying through the forest of both human and table legs. The hairs on her arms stood on edge; she shivered in goose bumps.

They swiveled their heads in unison toward the cockroach which was racing toward their teacher.

Old Mrs Gimley took on the agility of seasoned ballet dancer, descending on the creature which had so rudely disrupted her class. She mashed the living guts out of the roach and twisted the toe of her shoe on it twice for good measure.

In her distinctive, hyper-nasalized voice, Mrs Gimley exclaimed, “Another one bites the dust.” She swept the offending creature up with a spare exam paper and promptly threw it all in the bin.

“Back to work, you’ve got eight minutes left,” she commanded, inspecting the class with her hawk-eyes that peered threateningly over the rim of her glasses. The woman was unflappable.

Tessa’s heart was still hammering hard and fast. She felt the wetness grow from under both armpits. She clamped both sides of her arms shut to hide what pit stains were already there.

All rational thoughts had abandoned her. She tried hard to focus on finishing her test, but her mind kept rehearsing the feeling of the roach on her leg. One cockroach meant many more of its relatives were lurking in the halls and in the classrooms. The kind that were immune to the strongest pesticide control.

She wiped the perspiration off her upper lip and stared at the page. Tessa imagined hundreds of roaches running up her body and entering her mouth in nightmarish numbers. She wouldn’t finish the exam, for the dread and fear of roaches had overtaken her mind.

Are you like Tessa, with her overwhelming fear of cockroaches?

Doing a quick survey amongst a class room of bright and honest fifteen-year olds, I discovered that their phobias could be grouped into the following areas.

• Fear of death
• Personal
• Of a loved one
• Dying alone

• Fear of physical injury
• Blindness
• Falling from a great height
• Drowning from a riptide

• Fear of emotional pain

• Fear of creeping, stinging, slippery and crawling creatures
• Bees and wasps
• Cockroaches and snails
• Fish? One boy claimed he was afraid of fish. I tried not to laugh out loud.
• Cats—the animal and also the latest movie (It was just awful)

One definition of fear in The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary states that it is the unpleasant emotion caused by exposure to danger or the expectation of pain.

Let’s face it. Everyone is afraid of something. If you’re not, then you’re blatantly lying or a bit thick in the head.

Fear is gift given by God that is essential to our complex emotional make-up.

A healthy dose of fear is advantageous in certain situations.

Fear makes you more cautious.

Exodus 23:13

And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect (cautious): and make no mention of the name of other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth.

Moses delivered more laws on top of the 10 commandments to the children of Israel.

Fear would help them think of the consequences of disobedience. Fear would help them be vigilant in guarding themselves from danger or harm.

Fear helps us to pay attention and to be less reckless. No, I will not dangle my arm in that aquarium teeming with hungry Piranhas.

So on the positive side, fear can be our ally when it comes to protecting ourselves and our loved ones.

More on this topic in  Fear Factor Part 2.