Children is Always Scared of Darkness

Menglu Cai

Blog #1

Option 4

9/3/2013

Intro to Fiction 045

    In The Lonesome Place by August Derleth, the seven year old kid describe the Lonesome place as “ there it was, half a block long, black as black could be, dark as the deepest night, with the shadows of the trees making it a solid place of darkness, with the faint glow of light where a streetlight pooled at the end of the street, far away is seemed, and that other glow behind, where the other corner light lay”. This reminds me of my middle school, which was a boarding school.

     I had always been afraid of darkness when I was a kid. Every night, I would cover my head and whole body with a sheet so as to feel safe. It was my first year been away from home, and I was 12. Our school is really pretty, and it has the same kind of building as TCU does. It would take me five minutes walking from my dorm to classroom. There is a narrow path on the way to school, which is surrounded by the trees, bushes and lights.  It is really pretty during the daytime. When the night comes, all the lights around it would be lit up, so it is pretty even at night.

    However, one day it was very windy. The wind was blowing so hard. The trees were bent. Somehow, the electricity was gone in school.  It was around 9pm. I needed to go back to dorm from school. I went with a friend. It was so dark outside, and the whole school was very quite. There were only us. My friend and I were hand in hand, and decided to go back together. We were running together down that narrow path. I even closed my eye for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I saw the only two purple lights far from the cafeteria. It looked like a monster’s eyes. I felt that we were going to be swallowed by the monster or the darkness. I screamed out, which scared my friend. She dumped me behind, and ran back by herself. I was left in the middle of the road, scared. In the front, I saw a building’s light was suddenly on. I mustered all my courage, and ran all the way towards the light.  I waited in the building for a while. Until some of my classmates showed up, I went with them back to the dorm.

    Now, I am not that kind of afraid of darkness. When I read this story, it totally reminds me of that power gone moment. I could feel how unwilling the protagonist was when his mum asked him to go to town at night. I think kids in general are afraid of darkness. This is how all the scary monsters and ghosts in the woods, comes up in the kids’ mind. 

Derleth, August. “The Lonesome Place”.  American Gothic Tales. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates. New York: Plume, 1996. 2191-198. Print.