I won't lie and say I'm afraid of being stabbed, because I'm not. I've felt the white-hot heat that burns through the body, shooting waves of pain across the senses when the tip of the blade plunges deep into the skin. I know the pain that rips through the body for what seems like hours until it finally settles down into a soft, uncomfortable glow of annoyance. Fear isn't present when I come in sight of a butter knife from the kitchen drawer. I don't scream in horror and throw myself behind random pieces of furniture just to get away from the buttered metal stick.
I'm not afraid of being stabbed.
I won't lie and say I'm afraid of being shot, because I know damn well that that will never happen. If I was afraid of being shot, I would tie myself to the bedposts and wait for the apocalypse to happen so that I could safely walk across the streets. My paranoid nature would be completely gone because I wouldn't have to report to work every damn day and think of the times when I may have to go on a mission and risk getting shot by rebels or... Duo.
I've felt the hard, searing pain of another kind of metal entering the body in less-than-pleasurable situations, and I have no problems facing that again. Um. I just wouldn't necessarily go out in search of that kind of pain, standing in front of everyone with my arms out to my sides and screaming up to the gods to come take me home, baby! Come take me home!
Nope. Not afraid of that.
Am I afraid of death? Hell no. My eyes have been locked with the eyes of death on many opportunities before, sending me into many situations where all that I strive for is to gaze into his eyes and see everything I had missed in that day. Everything I had hoped to achieve and failed to do so in a twenty-four hour period is suspended and shot away as I enter my room on some nights and see him propped against my pillows, smiling at me as he forces himself away from the persistent tug of sleep. Those pillows that are so familiar to me now hold his scent, calmly telling me that I had once owned something but now it's his, too.
In the arms of Death, am I afraid? No. Never.
It's sad to admit that what I fear most is sometimes right in my own home, standing dark and gray. Withered and dusty. Frail and damaged. Brutal and kind. Did I mention "withered and dusty"? In any case, my fear is so strong when I encounter my phobia in the hallways or the kitchen. Maybe in the driveway, close to my car, if I'm lucky. Sometimes I just want to hop in my car and back over it about fourteen-hundred times until that frail body is nothing more than a lump of bones on the concrete, the blue weapon belonging to it no longer in the grasp of a small hand.
The mothballs! Good god! The mothballs!
It lets off this terrible odor of cat hair and cheap male cologne, the drafty scent filtering all across my house until I don't know exactly where I'll be hit next by the sight of this horrible creation.
That's right.
My biggest fear is Quatre's grandmother.
That old bat of a lady is always peeking around the corners of my house, wrapping her fingers tightly around the wire handle of a fly swatter, just waiting for me to turn a corner so she can beat me with it.
Ever been beat with a fly swatter?
Nothing can take me down, goddammit. No bullets or knives or any other various objects that may be pointy and sharp and can be located in the house that Quatre owns. But when Grandma Winner is packing the light blue fly swatter, I'm down so fast, it's almost embarrassing. When she's packing the goods, she's quite a powerhouse of old lady. I must admit, the fear I feel when I see her down at the end of the hallway is enough to take my breath away, shove me into shock, and leave me crying on the carpet until the beating's over and done with... but like most old ladies, she's got her weak spots.
"You know, you look a day shy of twenty."
The ultimate weapon.
Compliment her on her looks and that swatter is dropped back into the wicker purse and she man-handles your cheeks for a while. And sadly, I would much rather take that abuse than have my ass swatted until I don't want to sit down. Thankfully, Duo's very familiar with being a kiss ass, and he knows how to take care of me just fine.
"Yuy, Yuy, Yuy. When I was your age, I walked five-hundred miles barefoot in the snow just to go buy myself some bloomers!"
The stories. The stories are the worst I've ever heard, lacking any kind of decent plot and all the facts are thrown out the door at the beginning when says my name, rooting me in place all the time. As soon as the last name is used, you are hers for about three hours so she can tell her obscenely unbelievable story concerning her childhood.
"I had a cat named Raider who had fourteen tails and two eyes."
"Two eyes, Grandma Winner? What's so odd about that?"
"Did I mention the two eyes were on his tails? Split equally into portions so that when his tails slid together, he could look at you through two perfectly formed eyes."
"Really, Grandma-"
"Yes, ree~ally. Raider ate my CD's three years ago and died after one of the shards stabbed him in the lung and caused him to die from lack of oxygen!"
"Interesting. You tell the most fascina-"
"Don't I just, young Heero? Don't I just?"
Confirming the Raider story with Quatre, he told me calmly that Grandma Winner had had a cat named Schnookins-McGee seven years earlier who died after consuming a plastic container of pepper. Grandma Winner then tried shoving the cat's body in the oven to cook him for Quatre and three of his sisters, all of them around the age of eight. Well, Grandma Winner had laughed when Quatre's father had walked in and dropped his coffee mug, and she brightly announced that he was already peppered! Might as well!
"'Salt him up and shove a stick up his ass and we'll have kabob!'" Quatre had kindly quoted for me, making me fear the once-blonde little woman even more than I had already.
So, afraid of guns? No. Afraid of knives? No. Afraid of my lover? No.
Afraid of the little old lady with the gray hair, her body actually about nine-thousand years old in time, and the vicious swing that's accompanied with the unpainful smack of plastic on skin? The lady with the clickey shoes and the puffy blue sweaters, a little hat with its fake pink feathers propped on top of her small head, ranging in at about 4'11", carting around the Winner name easily through twin-like appearance to her family and especially Quatre? The satanic figure that cooks pancakes and likes to drink Kool-Aid without the sugar because it's good for her health? The Grandma Winner that totes around a can of prunes like it was an extra supply of blood just in case she were to drop dead after walking in on Duo and myself doing stuff that little old ladies should not witness?
That same act that little old ladies should not see, and the young people should not see the old ladies witnessing it because then those "youngsters" may go through temporary erectile dysfunction because of the bad mental pictures alone? You know, the bad mental picture of the old woman standing in the doorway, unsure of what exactly is going on, and asking obscenely embarrassing questions that range from, "Well, aren't you two nice?" to "Why do kids these days like all the scantily-clad wrestling?"
The grandmother figure that the other old ladies at the bingo hall are afraid of as equally as Death and the Soldier because she's a speed demon when it comes to making her voice reach the front of the room when she supposedly has Bingo?
Oh, my friends, yes. That is one of the worst things you may ever experience.
The mighty wrath of Grandma Winner, old lady-master.
My fear of this prune-eating, gray-haired, old, crotchety, fly-swatting, brilliantly old, master of culinary, frail piece of oldness...
Did I mention old?
... is going to be the end of me one of these days.
If you ever encounter this woman, God bless your shriveling soul, because Grandma Winner sure as hell will kill it by doing something so unimaginable I can't even imagine it! Er...
Watch out.
Watch out and be weary.
And if you don't want to get spanked by a two-thousand year old woman, shove a comic book down your pants and pray that she doesn't hear the 'smack' as her hand connects with it.
For Christ's sake, lock your bedroom door! Being impotent for three weeks, and in a coma for two, was something I wouldn't want to wish on anyone. Nothing kills the sexual mood more than hearing a witty, once-blonde calmly announce: "Well, damn. Either you two are in the process of hormone problems, or you're both really happy to see me." Insert creepy old-giggling right here, and a winking of a wrinkled eyelid. "I could always give you a better look. This skirt is easy to lift up. You two can take a quick peek, and it'll be our little secret."
Insert a mega-creepy animal growl coming from the lips of an ancient, and you have instant impotency.
Through the years of war, I never would have imagined that my greatest fear was a little old lady with the sweetest face and sharp teeth like a dog.
I would know. The bitch has bitten me before, claiming I was trying to steal her damn prunes.
Why would I steal her prunes?
Poor Quatre. Had to grow up with her.