Blog 4 - Long Essay - Rough Draft

Danielle Zingalis

Rough Draft – Long Essay 1

 

The Mask

            At twenty-two year’s old I would have to say that my list of irrational fears has dwindled in the past ten years. My fear of the dark, of being in the house alone, an unexpected noise that seems to make only me jump is only listing a few. I have come to live with my fears and so has my family. They don’t hurt anyone or cause anyone distress, except maybe myself, and I don’t see this “phase” passing anytime soon. These fears that I have weren’t things that I just woke up to, something had happened to me that changed everything. I remember a time in my life when I was scared to tears. Unfortunately it was my father who scared me. To this day, I still think about that moment. One minute was all it took to scare the living daylights out of me.

            My aunt used to live in a house that was directly in front of the woods. Between the woods in the backyard and the exterior décor of the house itself, it gave off a very eerie feel to it. Halloween was approaching and her sons had wanted to do something memorable. My aunt, having always been a fan of Halloween, was to set up a series of clues that would lead her boys and their friends from the basement to the backyard.

            To make this Halloween prank even scarier, my aunt had enlisted the help of two of my uncles and my father. My aunt’s role in this prank was to guide the boys in the right direction. She held a walkie talkie that gave her a deep, scratchy voice and one of her kids had the other walkie talkie. In the basement was my uncle, who happened to be my aunt’s husband. He was in the corner lurking in the shadows holding a rumbling chainsaw. Following my uncle, was my aunt’s brother, Tommy. He was dressed as a very creepy old woman. Supposedly, his character had died years ago in the house and only one comes out on Halloween. The last piece of this scary puzzle was my father, and he had a mask.

            This wasn’t just any mask, not to a six year old. This mask was brownish in color, it had hair coming out every which way, teeth that were sharp and separated with eyes that were yellow with little pupils. About a week before the joke was to take place, right before Halloween, my father had a great idea that instead of just scaring his nephews and their friends, he would scare me as well.

            What does any typical six year old do at three o’clock on a weekday? I came home from school and my mother was in the kitchen and I had already known that my father was home; his car was in the driveway. My mom said that he was just about to go in the shower and that I could go say hi. My mother had no idea what my father was planning and I have to believe that if she did she wouldn’t have let him go through with it. Walking down the hallway to the bathroom was such a big mistake.

            I hadn’t even gotten half way to the bathroom when he jumped out of I front of me. All he was wearing was the mask and his grey shorts. He was crouched down, his knees were bent down close to touching the floor and his hands were in mid air flailing around. He made some sort of screeching scream. To say I was scared, would be an understatement. I panicked. I turned right around and ran back into the kitchen screaming. My mother turned around and looked at me with surprise, not knowing what was wrong. I was so scared that I literally fell to the floor hugging my knees to my chest.

My dad came running into the kitchen with the mask in his hand. “It’s me!” he yelled over and over and over, but I wasn’t having any of it. I was just laying on the floor crying, my mom holding me. All she could think about while holding my shaking little body was what I was thinking - monsters do exist.

            My father felt horrible about what he did to me. He didn’t think I would react the way that I did. I was so traumatized that my father had to take me to the toy store and buy me something. I can’t remember what it was, but I remember that he bought my forgiveness for sixty dollars. Of course, I did forgive him, but that didn’t change how I view things today. Because of my father and his “funny” joke, I am scarred for life.

            I have become so paranoid over the years because of this incident that I am now afraid of so many things. I had to sleep with a night light for so many years because I was afraid of the dark. Although I am still afraid of the dark, it’s not as bad as it used to be. I don’t watch a scary movies and I won’t stay in the house by myself when it’s dark out. For a long time when the sun would go down I had to have my sister come down that exact same hallway with me to go to my room just to put on my pajamas, I was scared to be alone. We still live in the same house and although some of my fears have subsided, there are still some that are there. This paranoia I have is still with me at twenty-two years old. I refuse to go up the fourteen steps that ascend to the second floor of my house when it’s dark; I refuse to go into the garage when it’s dark out; I won’t look out any windows for a long period of time when the sun sets because I am that paranoid and that scared that someone will jump out and scare me.

Regardless of my own little “Halloween Prank,” my cousins and their friends had their own experience of a lifetime. Two of my cousin’s friends got so scared that they ran home. By the end of the night, when the joke was over, my aunt’s kids and their friends said that they knew it was a joke and that they weren’t scared. I got so scared by a mask for this practical joke and fell to the floor; my cousins and their friends were a part of the entire prank, I don’t care what they say, they got scared. Because I was too young to stay home alone, I had to go to my aunt’s house with my family. I had no intention of going outside to partake in this little prank my aunt had created. I stayed inside with my mom where it was safe. 

It’s safe to say that I can now laugh at what my father did to me, but it is clear that I never got over it. My dad, unfortunately, still scares me from time to time, but he says he’s doing it to help me get rid of my fear. I may laugh when he scares me now, but that doesn’t change the fact that I get scared. Not only did that day scar me but it scarred my dad as well. To this day he still feels bad about what he did, but it’s been years since this horrific event and I like to think that we have both moved past this.