When I was a child, I was scared of the dark

In my dream, we were galloping across the countryside, small hills, clefts of valley covered in lacy flowers. We were chasing a train and steam was rising from the train and steam from the flanks of the horses. It was a silly dream because in my actual life I'm afraid of horses. In fact, I'm afraid of nearly everything. As a child, I used to sleep with the lights on, terrified that I'd be taken by a monster in my sleep. I'd crawl into my brother's bedroom and sleep at the foot of his bed.

My mind was so active then, shadows were always nefarious, and the slight groans of a house settling were always, at least to my mind, a hand jiggling at the doorknob, someone walking along the yard checking the windows. That no one ever broke in, did nothing to dissuade my panic that someone would. I slept with pillows over my head. I lay completely still for hours, trying to hide the fact of my breathing, certain that someone was standing in the doorway of my room, checking to see if there were inhabitants. I lived my evenings and bed times in an intense. state of fear.

In early February, the United States carried out a raid in Yemen, which resulted in the death of an American solider and nine children under the age of 13, seven of whom were under age eight. I wonder, as you might now, what sorts of shadows those children saw, what they imagined hid in the dark recesses of their room, what sifnificance there was in the way the curtains bent in the window. But maybe that's exactly what it's like to be a child in Yemen, dreaming that the man in the doorway will not be a monster, but someone with a rifle. I wonder if they sleep at all, or if they lie, as I did, very still, for hour upon hour of the night, waiting for the man in the bedroom door to pass.