“Please, uncle Matthew, don't switch off the light.”
I hear those words from my little niece, Gabriel, just as I was about going out of the room he was staying in. He was spending the holiday period with us, and I thought after he said that, it was one of those childish things children usually say. He was only eight, and that is old enough without needing someone to sleep beside him, that was what I assumed. I turned back and let him know that the light will only disturb his sleeping, switched it off, and I went to the kitchen to switch off the water, returned to the sitting room to finish the movie I started earlier.
Just a few minutes into the movie I was watching, I heard him call my name. It was loud.
When I rushed down to his room, he was already up, gripping the bedsheet with both of his hands. His forehead was sweaty, and the direction of his eyes kept moving towards the door. I called his name and asked what the issue was, but he paused for a while before he shook his head and said that I had to stop asking him. I switched on the light beside his bed, sat beside him, and put his head on my chest until his breathing was normal again. She finally lay down, and I went out of the door with the door open, thinking that was the end of it.
Then the shouting started.
This time, I woke up to Gabriel screaming while something was hitting the floor. It was the type of screaming that made me almost forget where I was. I rushed again to his room, nearly falling over my yellow slippers. Getting to his room, I found him pressed against the wall. He kept pointing at the doorway when I asked what the issue was again, crying that he saw someone enter the room.
Nobody is here, Gabriel.
I searched under the bed, looked behind the curtains, and checked inside the wardrobe. I know how awkward I must have looked, going through the wardrobe that could barely fit in a mature human. But I had to check through anyway. Gabriel kept on insisting that he saw a tall figure enter the room and move closer to his bed while calling his name.
In this house?
I took him to the bathroom, bathed him to wash the sweat away, and told him he has been dreaming. He held one of my hands so tight that I could feel the hard grip in an uncomfortable way. I believed what I was telling her, so I wanted her to believe it too. Yet, I returned to the movie I was watching while I reduced the volume.
The following morning, Gabriel was so quiet. While I prepared yam and egg for us to eat, he laughed at something that was showing on the television and asked if he could follow me to the shopping mall. It almost got me vexed at how fast he had recovered. I was awake almost through the night, disturbed by his screaming, and now, it seems like almost nothing happened.
As we were getting dressed, he asked me a question.
“Did you check behind the door?”
I replied to him that I searched through all the corners. He nodded his head, but he was not looking convinced. Narrating his dream to me, he said the figure had been behind the door before he got to the room. He did not see its face. He had only seen its shadow stretching across the floor, even though the light was behind it.
I wanted to burst into laughter and let him know that shadow does not do like that. Instead, what I did was that I looked at the narrow strip of darkness under the door in his bedroom. The passage always has a bright light, but the strip is always dark due to the door blocking the light.
I stood there longer than I needed to. Gabriel had already gone to find his slippers.
Before leaving his bedroom the next night, I left the bedroom light on. Not because I believed his dream that something is behind the door, but I found out that the little comfort there was in being right when someone was frightened. I could easily give an explanation about his dream and search through every corner and see that no one had entered. But those things cannot make the fear she felt earlier go away.
Even after he had left and I switched off the lights, seeing darkness settle under a closed door, I always remember Gabriel's reaction and what he said. I no longer am in a haste to tell anyone that there is nothing to be afraid of. And now, before I check it out and know whether a fear makes sense, I need to know and understand what it feels like to that person passing through it.
Thank you for reading.
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