Fear

Dearie and I were talking, and Dearie said: "Is it solitude, or just an overwhelming sense of fear?  Solitude is beautiful, but fear is uncalled for!  Fear is still different from caution, and helplessness a much more benign sensation than fear.  When do you experience fear?  I, for one, experience it when I know for certain that the person in front of me, whom I believe to have known very well, begins to act unpredictably.  It is, most likely, a sign of my own weakness.  After all, I am so weak, and I cannot be proud of that.  And yet, sudden bursts of fear are not just about my own weakness.  They also embody what I might call the world's total potential for misunderstanding --and alienation.  It's in the air, and is also in my head - oh yes, I can feel it - and it frightens me so much that I begin to feel as though everything was a flat pie."  I asked Dearie if she meant a "lie," not "pie."  She was sobbing so hard now that she did not respond, yes or no.