When I first announced to my husband that I was going to attempt to write a horror story for Trespass Magazine, he suggested I write about going to see Bliss, the Australian Opera which opened this year. Quite honestly, I can’t bring myself to relive the trauma. I’ve only just reached the point where I am able to speak of it without having terrible flashbacks.
It did start me thinking, however, how the word ‘horror’ or the theme ‘scary’ can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and on a broad spectrum. Horror for some people, for example, is going to the dentist. Or going to see Simply Red in concert. Other people spend their lives in perpetual fear of encountering a dog, or of stepping on a pavement crack, or of being forced to sit next to someone who is eating a banana. Their worst nightmare would be seeing a dog walking, banana guzzling man carelessly skipping along an unevenly flagged pavement.
I have a completely irrational fear of bridges – in particular of driving over them. Which could potentially be problematic, living as I do on the ‘wrong side’ of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I had a friend who was so petrified of getting pregnant that she’s probably taken over a hundred pregnancy tests in her life – three before she’d ever actually even had sex. Another can’t bear to be anywhere near birds (the feathered variety) and if he inadvertently finds himself being approached by a member of the avian species, curls into a tiny ball and covers his head with his arms, moaning like an abused puppy.
Growing up, friends of mine would cower at being picked on to talk in class, whilst I practically tap danced on the table to get the teachers’ attention. After PE lessons, these same friends would think nothing of throwing off their clothes with gay abandon and frolic around the changing room in towels which could pass for hankies. I, on the other hand, shook with terror at the mention of the words ‘communal’ and ‘showers’ in the same sentence.
I can watch scary films, sure. Lord of the Rings had me lying awake at night with the light on for a whole week after I saw it. Ditto Harry Potter, Gremlins and Return to Oz. Those Wheelers still haunt my dreams and I was seven-years-old when I watched that film.
I’m known amongst the crowd with whom I went to uni for making a very odd moaning noise in the opening credits of The Exorcist one Halloween night, and running out of the Halls of Residence television room to hide myself under the nearest available doona. For someone who finds Watership Down a struggle to watch due to its body count, taking part in a back-to-back horror movie night on October 31st may not have been the best choice I ever made.
One thing that never fails to make me smile are those seemingly fearless types who throw themselves out of planes, jump off buildings or swim with sharks – then almost faint with fear at the merest sniff of a hypodermic needle.
It just goes to show, really, that our fears are as diverse as our passions.
Happy Halloween…. now where did I put that Simply Red album………?
