My fear is Vanilla

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My obvious fear is of the dark. Nyctophobia. I am the sort of person who turns off lights behind them only after the light in the path forward is first turned on. Every night, I glide through the hallways to my bedroom, afraid that the shadows would take a form, without prior warning. I hate jump scares. I hate them so much that I’m purposely containing their description within this paragraph before I move on to the next. I am writing, again, very close to midnight.

But there’s another type of fear that I keep tucked away inside the thinking, breathing folds of my central nervous system. It’s the fear of a filamentous bloodsucker lurking in every patch of stagnant water in the Asian tropics. It’s a being so unscrupulous you can’t even feel it sliding into your belly button. Or worse, elsewhere, parts where it’s most unwelcome. The psychotic shape-shifting worm, coming in all shades of dark; shapes that seamlessly shift between the atomic end of the scale to that end which resembles the trunk of a baby elephant.

Once, I was forced to partake in the “Midnight Owl”. It’s a game often played near the foothills of dense tropical jungle, think scavenger hunt, but at night, usually with a bunch of people you simply tolerate for social approval. How does one build camaraderie when you walk towards places that aren’t supposed to be lit (like, ahem, trees?) in the dead of the night? When game facilitators actively dress themselves up in a makeshift white sheet with cut out holes for seeing? Crouching by a moss-ridden milestone, they sometimes puff out cigarette smoke at those who wander away from their assigned groups, or simply startle them by, you guessed it. Jumping out.

I managed to dodge the crouching teachers, who were busy reducing some poor bloke into cold, midnight tears. There were 12 in my team, my watch indicated it’s an hour past midnight. We were suddenly told to duck at one checkpoint, and then kneel on the mulchy wet rainforest floor. The team leader was the torchbearer, and only drips of moonlight bestowed me with adequate vision to discern the shiny outlines of leaves now dripping with rainwater. The downpour began five minutes ago. We were instructed by the checkpoint sign to stay kneeled, unmoving. We had to listen to the sounds, both real and recorded, around us for 10 whole minutes and list the names of creatures we thought made them.

All I focused on was frogs since they seemed to be the ones least keen to mess with us at that moment. And then a breeze moved the tree canopy ever so slightly to allow a splintering beam of moonlight through to the forest floor at my feet and knees. My heart sank. Disgusting little pin-sized black hooks stood up, the colour of the muddy brown ground. Leeches. More than five of them, I was surrounded. I was terrorised. They were pointing their fishing hook heads at me, trying to feel out something solid and warm-blooded, but in extreme slow motion. I kept moving, I kept smushing my knees into the ground and rotating them slightly, as though they were gigantic mud paddle mixers.

Many of my friends that night were preyed on by these boots on the ground bloodsuckers, who teamed up with their tree fluke friends to cause chaos. Survival instincts kept me leech- and fluke-free in the forest. Some said it was because I was vegetarian and that my blood wasn’t as umami to them. I was glad. Fear sorted, confronted. I caught one meddling little wet hooker on my track bottoms when I was in the showers. I flicked it away with all the might the nail on my right index finger had the potential to muster. Leech free. I packed my belongings and my Bdellophobia away. Or so I thought.

Days later, invisible leeches began crawling all over me, but in my mind, while in my bed. I spent more than a week of sleepless, heavy breathing, rotisserie-turning nights. Now, the Midnight Owl game took place in 2007. It’s 2025, and the dreams have recurred under periods of extreme mental duress or burning body temperatures. The beauty of these leech dreams is that they are so rare, I never ever remember them properly. They are very mercifully spread out; I can safely say that in the past five years, I’ve had them only twice.

Today, with Anomie’s prompt, I am confronting this very hidden fear. Using my Veggie power, I have now made leeches, these horrible, slo-mo-twisting mental terrorists, vanilla. A pair of vanilla beans acting as bent, broken and misshapen stilt-like legs for their white orchid flower with mascara so thick it looks like it’s wearing black-rimmed glasses shaped with eyelash-like wings.

Meet Vanilla, with soft pollen-flecked coiffure, sporting black lipstick. She has a small mouth that’s always agape, exhibiting a state of constant perplexity at human reactions to her. Her hands are wispy, made out of her withered stalks and petals which have now turned a shade of dull orange.

“You are afraid of me?” Vanilla asks. As an epiphyte, or a friendly tree tenant, she invites me to sit comfortably inside a hole inside an imaginary tree, looking out at her. She mysteriously floats in the air, her body still connected to her symbiotic roots.

I breathe in deeply. “You are funny-looking. No, you actually make me laugh,” I reply, unblinking.

“How rude,” she tuts disapprovingly. “You are funny looking. A flightless ape. Your kind has only ever done me harm. Look up Madagascar, look. The whole world is addicted to me, but have they once thought about how or where I actually come about? Humans are funny creatures,” she retorts.

“Ok, I thought this was about my fear. I am not sure that it is completely gone, but every time I look at you, it makes leeches look a little more ridiculous by the second. You really look like them, Vanilla. Did you know that?” I ask.

“If you say I look like leeches, I take that as a compliment. But if you call either of us ridiculous, you deserve to be a scared little chimp. I hate those things, with their arses hanging out. They beat their own grandmothers when they get bored. Nasty things, your relatives. But leeches? They have NEVER caused me any aggro. I hear they attack moving things. Fun fact: we don’t move. What is the thing you dislike the most about them?” she asks.

“The way they make me feel,” I say. She tuts again. “That’s your phobia talking. Think carefully. What IS something you dislike about them?” she asks again.

“They are worms that sneak into your crevices and drink your blood. Would you like that?” I respond curtly. She snaps back, saying: “Dude, THAT happens to me EVERY DAY!!!!! Weevils with their ugly snouts, bugs with their disgusting flicky tongues. A bug tongue is waaaay more creepy that a leech. Eewwwww!!!!!

“Ok I want to ask you. Besides the physical, psychological feeling leeches cause you, WHY do you actually dislike them? Do they represent something within you that you can’t comprehend or control? Is it connected to your childhood somehow?” Vanilla continues the mid-air interrogation.

“Ok, I’ll be honest. I really think it’s just fear of the unknown. Since I was a child I’ve feared worms, the slimy, wet, slithery things they are. They would just cause me heart palpitations, just the sort of feeling you get when you experience free fall. Wait, have you experienced free fall?” I ask Vanilla distractedly.

Vanilla now swings her spindly bean-legs around in annoyance. “Of course I haven’t, I’m still hanging here aren’t I? You are so rude, it’s as if you were born without manners. Like that granny-bashing chimp.”

I am really enjoying Vanilla’s company now. “Vanilla, can I think of you the next time my leech fear rears its ugly head again?” I ask.

“Ok, human, but I can’t always empty a tree out for you, the birds are already annoyed with me. You have to make your own seating arrangements. And don’t depend on me. Don’t be a parasite like other greedy humans,” Vanilla replies. This delights me. “What do I get in return?” she questions, staring at me with her lidless mascara-laced eyes.

“I will learn more about you and your family. The forest you’re from,” I answer earnestly. “No, you must learn about the ENTIRE island. It’s a biological wonder, my home is, one of the most unique places in the world. Learn its history, pre-human, post-human habitation. Learn about their impact on us. Learn about how we are changing. Learn about why that matters to you.

“Every time you fear a leech, remember, you are an apex predator. A leech is a predator’s predator. Remember who’s your true boss, and give it a mental salute. Leeches are powerful, enigmatic. Forest creatures like us cheer on for them actually, since they are one of the very few things still fighting human colonisation. Remember that, every time your fear returns. Maybe, fear can be a good motivator for you to finally learn some RESPECT!” Vanilla shouts out her final words before she begins to send me off to my living room. She turns her back against me for a few seconds, and as though in mid-thought, she turns her flowery heard back towards me.

“Hey,” she calls out. “Yea?” I ask. “If you ever kill a leech, I will come and find you. You manifesting me has somehow given me untold mental powers over your silly, fearful head. Do not harm my friends!” she warns. “Vanilla, I would never harm them, of course!” I assured.

“Don’t even harm them unintentionally. Look, if you really don’t want them to come near you, rub some fresh tobacco leaves all over yourself. Leeches hate that, they can sense the danger nicotine can cause to their soft-muscled bodies. But NEVER apply tobacco to them directly, it may kill them. Deter them, don’t kill. Deal?” she offers the condition.

“Deal,” I respond. We part ways. As she disappears away from my now sleep-heavy inner vision, I begin to miss her company. And the truth is that, I do actually have more respect for leeches now more than ever, since this is the first time I’ve ever thought about their role in the food chain.

They are freedom fighters in a battle against humans, not the terrorists I previously thought they were. And they recycle soil nutrients by keeping insect populations at an ecologically feasible level. Although they prey on humans, they are also eaten by birds, fish and insects. And I’ve just now realised that they are one of the best indicators of water quality, since they are ultra-sensitive to pollutants. They save humans from deadly water contamination.

Bloody good guys aren’t they, these fellas? I’m still shit scared of them though, but I am increasingly confident that I would be friends with some of them one day, only if they promise me they wouldn’t touch me. I wouldn’t want to then accidentally harm one to incur the wrath of sweet-smelling yet icily sarky old Vanilla, as much as I would delight in her company again. She wouldn’t be so full of bants then, innit?