In Continuum.

Hydrophobia

This is a little something my friends might not necessarily know about me.Which is kind of strange,how it reminds me of John Mark Karr,that guy who supposedly killed JonBenét Ramsey,and how his friend testified for him,that he knew John since he was a kid,and he's not the kind of person who would do such a thing.True enough,he didnt kill JonBenet.I kinda knew that when he made his confession,but his eyes sure scared the living daylight out of me.Type "John Mark Karr" at wikipedia.net and his photograph will freak you out worse than any scene from The Exorcist.But then again,im sure he strangled some poor little girl somewhere in America.Just look at those eyes,damn it.

Anyway,you know how somewhere down the line of a friendship you discover something surprising about this close friend of yours.It doesnt need to be something as shocking as the above mentioned example of course.It could be that your best friend's actually gay when he has had twenty girlfriends or so,or the fact that he is terrified of cats.Or having a strange phobia for something,like balloons or mustard.And yes,those phobias do exist,i bullshit you not.

So there,this is my phobia that a lot of you guys might not know about: Hydrophobia.It is the fear of water,or the fear of open waters,where your feet cannot touch the ground,to be more exact.I am terrified of the open waters,not daring to swim more than twenty metres or so out of the shore of the beach.Even at the pools,with the lifeguard in sight and the place rather under controlled,i still cant help but fear the middle of an average swimming pool.Im a tall person sure,but when the water goes over my head and my feet starts to touch nothing but water,i start to struggle and panick a little bit.

It's funny,because you wouldnt expect somebody with a fear of say...mustard to actually eat mustard.Or someone who is afraid of dogs to have one at home.You'd expect me to be terrified of water,and therefore stay away from anything that has got to do with swimming.But strange enough,i actually have a Silver certificate for my swimming course,and a level one life-saver's course certificate to go along with it.It is a strange thing how i conquered my fear of water through those days.I remember they were Tuesday evenings,when the school sort of forced us to go down to Kallang Swimming Complex to take courses on swimming.I remember when we were asked to swim laps up and down the pool i kept always to the side,and we were allowed to go upright,always horizontal and always swimming.But i kept kicking the sides,especially when i feel myself sinking towards the middle of the pool.The instructor would scold me for it,then ask me to swim further away from the edge,which i did of course,but not for long.

Anyway,i dont go hysterical when i bath of course.I mean,as long as both my feet is on the ground i guess i am fine.But you can imagine the fear i had when i was kayaking back in the Secondary School days.I dont know how Krishna managed to convince myself and Samuel to get our butts to Sembawang on one sunny Saturday afternoon to Kayak.I mean,kayaking involves the open seas,and that one frightening mother man.Not to mention,the dragon boat thing i had this morning with the battalion,as part of the celebration for its birthday.When the boat swayed,i held on to the sides and cursed the guys sitting on the starboard of the boat,asking them not to come to my side because it might tilt the boat too much.

I think it is the idea of dying from drowning.It's so much different from the other forms of death,because it involves so much suffering before it actually happens.You try to breathe and you cant,and the way water filles up your lungs when you try to do so.What lurks under the surface is such a scary thing of course,and i attribute that fear to Steven Spielberg and the bloody Great White.

So there,i have spilled out my fears to everybody out there reading.I think if you really want to freak me out,drug me one day and throw me out into the openwaters one fine day.You dont even have to leave me,just watch me struggle my ass off in the water.

I have heard of a theory that phobias are the hints of your previous life,of how you actually died.For example,somebody who is afraid of balloons might have died from the bullet from a gun.Somebody afraid of mustard mightve been choked to death by it while eating a hotdog.Somebody who's afraid of dogs mightve been biten to death by one.Me,i mightve drowned somewhere in Alaska while fishing in the middle of a frozen lake or something.Who knows?But one thing i remain dubious of the theory,though.It doesnt work out,on Samantha's situation.I mean,were you killed by a clown or something?What's with the fear of clowns?Oh,yeah.That's right.Stephen King.Damn those bloody horror movies.

PS. I find Freddy Kruger hopelessly dumb,though.