Buffoon on a tricycle
Some children’s greatest fears live underneath their beds, and their parents have gotten up many a weary night and gone to their child’s bedroom, flashlight in hand, lifted the covers, shone the light on the dusty floor, and proved, once again, that there is no monster.
When I was a boy, I had a recurring dream about a giant, scowling, and mean-eyed lumberjack, who wore a bright red flannel shirt, blood stained jeans, and muddy boots, and who carried an enormous gleaming axe in his right hand. Not only did I dream about that lumberjack; I was sure he lived in my bedroom closet. Whenever I dreamed about the lumberjack, I would wake up frightened, short-of-breath, and sweaty; and I knew what I had to do: turn on the lamp beside my bed, find some courage, tiptoe to the closet, and throw open the door, either to be axed by my fear or to be relieved that, once again, it was only a nightmare.
As fearsome as that lumberjack in my dreams was, there was one thing odd and buffoonish about him. Instead of a horse or a pickup truck, he rode, I kid you not, a tricycle—his knees up around his ears and his enormous feet slipping off the pedals. When I was a child, the dream struck me with terror; years later, though, I laughed at myself and at the dream: my Goliath-sized fear looked like a monster, but he was nothing more than an overgrown child who wanted nothing more than to get to play.
