Why We Are All Afraid of Ourselves

This essay is part of a series called The Big Ideas, in which writers respond to a single question: What do we fear? You can read more by visiting The Big Ideas series page.

I knew I was not in my own bed. I was afraid to open my eyes. There was no blanket on me, and I was in my clothes, but with no shoes. I could hear yelling and echoes. The hangover was still coiled somewhere deep in the spot where the neck meets the skull.

I could tell I wasn’t in a hospital. Men shouted and someone was crying. I was keeping my eyes shut, and I tried to find the last memory of the night before. Drinks with other faculty members at the Rockhill, and then … nothing.

I’d been dreaming of a car crash before I woke. Then I realized my chest, my chin and my arm were sore, and it hit me: I’d been in a wreck, in real life. I sat upright and looked around.

It was a jail, all right. I got out of bed and, in a state of physical, trembling panic, went to find someone who could tell me what I’d done. On the far side of the common area, at a desk elevated above the floor, like the judge in Kafka’s “The Trial,” a guard sat behind a plexiglass screen.

I stood there. The guard ignored me. The desk was at about the same level as my face. I looked up at him.