What Are the Urchins’ Greatest Fears?

By Steve Make-Believe, columnist for Fraidy Cat Magazine

Last week I had a chance to sit with the three co-founders of a budding blogging collective known as the Urchin Movement in the lobby of a cheap hotel over endless cups of tea. At first, I felt embarrassed that Fraidy Cat would have us meet in such conditions, but the three of them assured me that the location met their standards.

‘Cheap hotels are a luxury,’ Geo says. ‘We feel comfortable here.’

Speaking of comfort, I shift uncomfortably and get right down to business. ‘What are the Urchins’ greatest fears?’ They look at each other with all-too-knowing glances. It was if they anticipated the question already and had spent have the week formulating their responses.

‘Eggplants,’ Sarah says.

‘Eggplants?’

‘Yes, eggplants.’

I ask her to elaborate, and right away she does, going into a moving soliloquy.

‘Ah, aubergine. You’re so deceptively beautiful with your smooth purple skin and curvaceous silhouette. You lure me in with your healthful properties and ease of incorporation into vegan recipes. And then I eat you. And you taste like crap. I’ve tried, eggplant. I’ve tried to like you. I’ve eaten you grilled on veggie burgers. I’ve eaten you seasoned and baked in the oven. And every time I gag and cry, cursing your seductive ways that keep me coming back time and time again…

‘And just when I think I’ve experienced all the sly trickery you’re capable of, the unthinkable happens: I eat you at a work barbecue, and I love you. I forget every horrible time you’ve ever made me want to hurl my guts out and come running back for not two, not three, but four helpings! Lulled into a false sense of security by your delicious barbacued turn, I purchase you at the farm stand. I should have known better. You’re out of my mouth and back onto my plate faster than me turning off a Judd Apatow movie…

‘AND THEN I find out on Wikipedia that you contain more nicotine than any other edible plant! So now you’re trying to kill me, eggplant? I knew it! My name is Sarah Jost, and I’m afraid of eggplants. I live a life of fear, and I don’t see a way out. My only advice to you, readers, is to run. Save yourself. It may be too late for me.’

She plops back in her chair, exhausted. Throughout the speechlessness that followed, I manage a discreet text to my wife to ixnay the eggplant casserole for that night. I then turn to Margaret. It is her turn, and she takes it.

‘Do you know what the Ebola virus does to you? Nine out of ten people infected with some strains of Ebola hemorrhagic fever die. You’re dead in less than two weeks. It ain’t pretty, folks. Your insides essentially liquefy. Your skin cracks and you literally bleed out. But not before puking and pooing what’s left of your organs all over the poor soul that’s taking care of you. Now, I’m no scientist… but that sounds bad.

‘Oh, and guess what? There’s no cure. There’s no treatment. If there’s ever a mass outbreak, we are all going to die and leave a pile of human goop on the planet.’

‘What do we do?’ I ask, gripping my pen and notepad but feeling paralysed with fear.

‘Stop cutting down the rain forest and letting the monkeys out!’

(Author’s note: In seriousness, deforestation has led many scientists to believe that increased contact with wildlife has caused serious disease outbreaks within the human population.)

My eyes go to Geo, who’s been itching to talk since I first posed the question. ‘Let me paint you a story,’ he begins. ‘It was a first-grade school day. I was six. Class had just let out and the recess period unfolded before my young eyes like the arms of a loving mother welcoming me home. The blacktop was sleek from a fresh morning rain, but the sun had shown up, illuminating the playground for thirty whole minutes of unbridled play.’

I don’t like where this story is going. Nonetheless, he proceeds.

‘I grab a basketball and run toward the far baskets on the other end of the blacktop. Despite my realistic aspirations of becoming the first Filipino-American in NBA history, I still needed to look down at the ground to dribble. That’s when I begin to see them.’

‘What? Eggplants?’

Sarah shudders. Geo shakes his head. ‘No, earthworms.’ He pauses for effect. ‘At first, I saw just one. I thought it was a twig. Then I saw two more. I thought, the nearest tree is way over there, and it’s not very blustery. I stopped in my tracks to hypothesise before realising that those weren’t twigs but earthworms, and they were everywhere.’

‘What’d you do?’

‘I tiptoed all the way to the boys’ loo, which took forever, and I just stood in there until recess was over.’

‘That’s awful. And you’re still, to this day, afraid of earthworms?’

‘I would’ve moved on had history not repeat itself twelve years later. I was eighteen. Freshman at university with a world of confidence. It was late, and I was walking a girl to her dorm. It had just rained. I should’ve known. I can still hear the shrieks.’

‘The earthworms were shrieking?’

‘No, I was.’

I shake myself out of my fear coma and study the three people before me. ‘How do you expect to change the world when these types of things scare you?’ For the first time in a long while, they all smile.

‘Well, we’re not really scared of anything else.’