CHILDHOOD FEARS BY JEREMY THOMPSON

When I was a very young boy, I was afraid of the off-putting entity known as The Hairy Fairy. It, in fact, remains one of my earliest memories.


In my mind’s eye today, The Hairy Fairy seems the filthy, brown-grey mane of a freshly scalped hobo, with a pair of tiny wings and a lengthy, striped wand protruding from its matted depths. Mutely, it flies, weaving and bobbing, its intentions a mystery. What sort of spell might it cast, upon a human target?


The origins of such imagery have been swallowed by time. Did I see The Hairy Fairy on television, illustrated in a comic book, in a dream, or in some kind of bizarre street theatre? No fuckin’ clue. Perhaps the entity truly exists, and cast its image into my mind psychically. Or maybe my parents constructed one with a dirty wig and repurposed doll parts, and dangled it over the crib of my infant self.


At any rate, the idea of such an entity kept me shivering at night. In the dark, I’d imagine it plummeting down from an unwatched room corner, hurling itself upon my face to obstruct my respiration. Gagging on a mouthful of hair, I’d asphyxiate, terrified and confused. The Hairy Fairy’s murderous motives would forever go unexplained.


Prior to this Childhood Fears writing prompt, I hadn’t thought about The Hairy Fairy in quite some time. Certainly, I wouldn’t have expected the entity to have influenced my writing. But…


Now that I think about it, all of my male protagonists have been shorthaired and clean-shaven. Furthermore, my female characters tend to favor close-cropped hairstyles such as pixie and bob cuts. Perhaps The Hairy Fairy haunts me to this very day!


Author Bio:


Jeremy Thompson is the indie horror fictionist whose mind and fingers united to birth The Phantom Cabinet, Let's Destroy Investutech, Silent Minority, The Land of Broken Sky, Toby Chalmers Commits "Career" Suicide, and The Forever Big Top. His stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies such as Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2, Into the Darkness Volume 1, DarkFuse, Journal of Experimental Fiction, This Book Ain’t Nuttin to Fuck With, and The Horror Zine. A San Diego State University graduate, Jeremy resides in Oceanside, California.


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