ON DREAD:

In his first short story collection, Orson Scott Card wrote that the worst kind of fear is dread...the fear of something unknown. As if the anticipation of the deed would be worse than the deed itself (I also believe the reverse is true - that the anticipation of a joyous event often exceeds the joy of the event. But this isn't a joy post - it's a dread post). I find this is the case with much in my life; once I know what's going on, I can go forward. It's the not knowing that's so smucking frustrating.

Speaking of the word "smucking," I was recently reading Stephen King's new short story collection, "Just After Sunset," and there were three stories in there that gave me pause. I've said in the past that with Stephen King novels, the worst part is having to stop in the middle - because you don't know what's going to happen. While Mr. King certainly has a powerful imagination (and a gift at conveying that imagination), I don't think it's possible to strike fear in someone if that fear isn't already present.

Example: I had a dream when I was three years old about a vampire clown when I was three or four years old. It's one of the earliest dreams I can remember. Several years later, Stephen King's miniseries for the book "It" came out...featuring an evil clown. And despite that I was busy trying to become a man and cast away my childhood fears, I barely slept at all that night. The next morning, on my paper route, I gave every sewer grate an extra-wide berth...just in case.

So with his new set of short stories, I didn't know what to expect...but I was legitimately frightened. This wasn't like his novels, where things have a way of wrapping up and working out at the end (most of the time, not all of the time, which is one of the reasons I enjoy his work so much). These stories stayed with me, for whatever reason. Without ruining the stories for anyone, I guess you can add OCD, duct tape, and port-a-johns to the list of things I dread.