Journal #4: Imitating Hurston's Personification

So Alice had stopped submitting to fear. Fear, that constrictive being with cold fingers who lurks in the unknown. The strong one who lived in the conscience of the sane like a vicious storyteller whispering in one's ear. What need has Fear for enveloping the insane, and what madness can drive him away? He creeps in his cold cavern that coaxes the curious as well as the cautious. Waits silently all day with his lips drawn back, waiting for the wary ones to step into the mystery. Been waiting everywhere at once for eternity, for him and her and them and theirs. She found her friends embedded with his teethmarks very often. She was impatient and excited too. Poor Micah! He ought not to have to venture the caves by himself. She sent his mom to accompany him, but Micah said No. A mother was all right when he was young, but he's much too old for that now. He'd be all right as soon as he saw that he could not get hurt. He was definitely going to jump. That was what he believed. But his mom told her of his past, so she could see. And then if he didn't, he would be teased mercilessly, for all of his friends had come to the cliff at the edge of the sea. People who laughed at Fear, had met the glorious being that materialized before them once they had conquered the constrictive one. Micah's friends stood on the cliffs and waited for his revelation. Freedom, that uncaged tiger, was just a step out of reach.