A man with his arms folded.
There has only been one time when I thought my life might be in danger, but I was too tired to be scared at that point - and then, quickly enough, the moment had passed.

But there was one point in my life when I felt blind, gut-bursting terror, and it was caused not by any threat to my life or welfare, but by a man standing with his arms folded.

At my primary school, we would occasionally have entertainers of one sort or another come to put on a show. I can only assume they were deemed to be educational in some way. One afternoon when I was about 5 or 6, we were all shepherded into the school hall to see one of these shows. The curtains were drawn across the windows: the only light was that which had been shone onto a hastily-constructed back-cloth.

We were hushed and expectant; and after a moment, a man came out from behind the cloth, and stood looking at us.

I can't remember much about him, save that he had dark hair, was wearing a purple t-shirt, and that he had his arms folded. And to say that I was terrified by him doesn't begin to come close to it. I have no idea why - there was nothing about him that warranted such a reaction; but I had never been so scared in my as-yet short life - and I don't think I've been so scared since. I'm not entirely sure that anything could scare me quite so comprehensively. This wasn't the fear that you might get from, say, needing an operation, or the fear that a loved one might die. It was worse than that. It was a deep, fathomless, existential horror - the kind of horror that makes you yearn for death rather than flee from it.

For those few, very few, seconds, the world opened up beneath me, and I stared into its infinite indifference. I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked back at me - and, mentally, I screamed, and screamed, and screamed. I would have screamed vocally, too, but I was too scared. All because of a man with his arms folded.

And then the show started, and I think I quite enjoyed it.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 5 Apr 2012, 14:31, 1 reply)

Was it 'The Great Suprendo'?
If so, you were right to be scared. The fat fucking nonce.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Thu 5 Apr 2012, 17:07, closed)