Comfort and Fear

In a forgotten time of the past, people lived in a different way. In communion with nature, they were open armed to unpredictability. Nobody planned, nor anticipated the future in the attempt to control it — the illusion of being defended from life. If not altogether happy, everybody was at peace. The exception was two anemic, similar, lonely, and frustrated cousins, called Comfort and Fear. With no friends, they were shadows that lived behind people and had to follow them in order to move. They were elongated, pretentious, and thought they could become very powerful if the right opportunity presented itself. What would it be?

Their ambition was to develop themselves and dominate all humans. They were sure they would make it, if they could only become stronger and independent. For that to happen, they knew they had to go inside humans, for only in the latter’s core they could grow and become a second identity to each person. Abandoned and weak, however, Comfort and Fear could hardly keep close enough to people so as to continue following them.

On a certain sunny day, when everybody enjoyed bathing in the most beautiful sea, Comfort and Fear were almost dissipating in the sand. The midday sun on the head of people barely allowed them to form a shadow, and the two cousins became agonizing residues, memories, or germs of future projects.

“I’ve had enough being ignored and only exist as a dark projection of someone exposed to the light,” whined Fear.

“We gotta make a plan of attack,” suggested Comfort.

“What plan? You are a sissy that only likes cushions and things humans have no need for!” retorted Fear.

“What about you, who can only boast of being capable to dry anyone’s life and is now on your last leg?”

“Let’s not fight; we are very alike and depend on each other,” mumbled Fear.

Comfort was too weak to keep talking, when all of a sudden, having the sun gone down a little in the sky, the projection of a small shadow grew behind a girl walking near him. Attracted by the call of dependence, an essential characteristic of shadows and parasites, Comfort immediately merged with it. Feeling a little stronger, he said to Fear.

“Sissy or not, I have a plan that will not only make me really strong, but as a consequence of my seduction, it will make you king!”

“Do you mean that I will reign because of whatever you do? Are you crazy? I am the oldest between us! It was me that gave origin to you!”

“On the contrary, fool! You will see that the need of me is what brings you in the picture and what makes you grow!” Comfort retaliated.

“Whatever…as long as I am saved…” capitulated Fear.

Taking root in the girl’s shadow, Comfort transformed himself into hallucinations invading her head. The first was a multicolored parasol to shelter her from the sun, which was really becoming too hot. Before the girl could even wish for the parasol, it changed into a beach cabana over lazy chairs with thin, soft mattresses, flanking a small table full of refreshments.

“This is what all of us need! It will make the beach more pleasant and soft,” the girl thought, before going to sleep on some nearby, shaded grass. In her dreams, a house with a roof to defend her from the rain, the wind, and even the heat, appeared to her as what she urgently needed, and without knowing it she facilitated the hallucinating work of Comfort. The house had air conditioning, which made her ask herself how she could have lived without it, while more images of safety and easiness, appearing as things that would spare her from the manifestations of nature, continued to invade her head. She dreamt of technological gadgets that could predict the weather, the hurricanes and the tornados, helping humanity to be prepared; to become able to plan its days!

“How could we have been so blind until now?” she thought. “I have to describe all of it to the others so we can start building these wonderful things!” she decided with an urgency that until then she’d never experienced.

After she infected everyone, it didn’t take long for people to give shape to her mirages and much more. Devices were accumulated on top of devices; remote controls were multiplied every week. Soon, people were proud to be able to map their days with the help of all that, and they even conceived something they called a “safety zone” around each one of them. It was so comfortable and secure that it would be always difficult to step out of it. But if someone needed to travel to different places, he or she could plan and create new defenses to replicate their comfort zone. People would no longer be free spirits, taking each day at a time and playing them by ear. They would no longer be this irresponsible, no longer expose themselves open armed to others, let alone to God’s surprises, because everything would be under their control. Fear helped them to avoid surprises, erasing out of existence whatever couldn’t be foreseen.

Like his cousin had told him, Fear became so strong and bulky that there were no heroes left to save anyone from anything in case of need. He was able to transform people into his slaves, and every time a person gave up going to a new place or venture into something different, he became bulkier. However, there was still a monster that was not only impossible to do away with, but unpredictable, incalculable, and totally unfair. It obeyed no remote control, no limits of security, and no isolation rope. The grotesque thing was also erratic, often pouncing on people that were fit and young, and leaving alone those who should be better candidates to exit the planet. It hadn’t always been a monster, though. Before Comfort changed the lives of everybody, that monster was only one among many natural events, but once everyone managed to be armed to their teeth, it became an aberration. Its name was Death.

The efforts Fear made to erase it amounted to nothing but making Fear itself stronger, more prevalent, sinister, and treacherous. Never having managed to be more than a shadow, Fear was pretty stupid, but still realized that death could be his ally by continuing to make him bulkier through their confrontations. Instead of retaliating, he’d better retribute with kindness.

In its dependence on his cousin, Comfort went along for the ascension of the latter’s ride and gave origin to more cushions, pills, remote controls, and even computers to infuse more easiness in people’s safety zones, speed in their communication, promoting the realm of the virtual, more-than-safe experiences, and the impossibility of telling what was true from what was invented. When erasing the importance of the authentic and the fickleness of the fake, he became more indispensable than both. He made people only see harshness in the world, become more afraid and dependent on him and his cousin. In fact, he grew into an invisible and gigantic ball of goo tying up people’s movements and muddying their will to do things. By then Fear too was enormous, a shapeless presence of darkness and trickery whose obscurity had no limits. He sat on a throne, created defensiveness, giving origin to fights and wars. With these endless sources of tips to death, Fear secured his sovereignty forever.

Fear is distance from ourselves; distance from God.