Confessions of a Vivid Imagination

I have a confession to make.

I’m scared of the dark.

Yes, I realize I am an adult. Yes, I realize I shouldn’t be scared.

But last weekend, I had to face the fact that I’m still a wimp with an overactive imagination when the lights go out.

I was staying with a friend who has a lovely two-story home in a rural setting, surrounded by beautiful woods and lots of nature. The house is a split-level or what My Knight calls a high-ranch. The main level is on the second floor and opens at ground level in the front and onto a deck in the back. The downstairs is underground in the front but opens onto a patio and driveway in the back. Their downstairs features a game room, bar, family room, guest bedroom and bathroom, and a garage.

They have upstairs guest rooms, but because they said the downstairs tends to be cooler and I tend to sleep hot (thank you, perimenopause!), I opted to sleep downstairs.

All was well until it was time to go to bed and I realized I was downstairs all by myself.

And boy, was it dark! Inside and out!

In the daylight hours, the French doors leading out to the downstairs patio overlook a beautiful field with gorgeous trees and a forest in the distance, making for an incredible sunset view.

But at night? It is pitch black out there, and you couldn’t ask for a more perfect setting for zombies roaming in from the woods.

As I settled in at bedtime, I made another startling discovery.

The downstairs bedroom door had no lock, which meant I’d be vulnerable to the zombies if they decided to emerge from the woods and break the glass on the French doors to unlock the deadbolt, which everyone knows zombies are apt to do.

So the logical thing to do would be to sleep with the lamp on so I could see the zombies the moment they burst through the bedroom door, right?

Wrong!

The bedroom where I was sleeping had a large window covered with the sheerest curtains you can imagine. Which was great to let in the sunlight during the day, but at night? It was basically a magnifying glass that lit up my room like a beacon and advertised to the zombies (or anyone outside, really) that I was alone and vulnerable.

So, instead of a lamp, I lay awake scrolling through my phone and listening for zombies, and maybe even occasionally flipping the phone around suddenly to light up the room in case a nefarious creature had gotten in without me noticing.

At some point, exhaustion set in, and I decided I’d had enough crazy for the night and I should get some sleep.

But once I turned the phone off, I had a different dilemma. I am a side sleeper. Should I lie on my left side, which would expose my back to the window and leave me vulnerable to the zombies peering in with their excellent night vision? Or lie on my right side, exposing my back to the closet where the zombies could have been hiding out all day just waiting for night to fall and me to turn the phone off and roll over?Luckily, I have a family member who is a night owl, so I placed a call to her and asked her to talk me off the ridiculous ledge I’d put myself on.

She suggested that I move a chair against the bedroom door so I could at least hear the zombies come in the room and have a moment to prepare my defense.

But to get up in the dark and move the chair, I would have to put my feet on the ground, and everyone knows once you turn out the lights, the monsters under the bed are watching and waiting for the foot to touch down.

So there I was, trapped in the bed, in the dark, in a panic.

Somehow, my eyes eventually drooped enough that I managed to fall asleep. And when I woke the next morning, the whole thing seemed silly and delusional. There was nothing frightening about the property or the downstairs. The windows and French doors let in plenty of light, and it was a pleasant space to hang out in.

Until night came again, that is. And then I went through the panic all over again.

I’d like to think this overactive imagination is the reason I can be so creative when writing stories. But I’d also love to be able to turn it off and get some sleep when I’m alone in the dark.

Is there anyone else out there who still gets spooked when the lights go out? No? Just me?

Oh well.