Afraid

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Afraid

• Exploring One Emotion in Depth
• By Kim Peterson

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Afraid A True StoryBy Kim Peterson

One hot summer day, late in the afternoon,
clouds started to roll in and the sky began to
turn darker. My mom called for my brother and I
to come inside because there were storm warnings
all around us. When we got inside, the weather
man was reporting tornadoes, rains, and hail.
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• We spent the next several hours camped out in the
  lowest part of our house Under the stairs in
  the basement. I was afraid sitting there with my
  mom and brother, listening to the reports coming
  from the closest T.V., just outside of our hiding
  place. You could tell the air was green and
  hazy outside. The sirens blared every now and
  again. The wind would blow hard and then die
  down, only to blow hard again.

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• We emerged from our spot, hungry and relieved,
  after the tornado warnings passed. We were happy
  to get out of there and happy nothing happened.
  Outside the rain started to pound down as we
  headed upstairs for a special treat Pancakes.
  We always got to eat Pancakes for dinner when my
  dad was out of town. Little did we know that our
  night was only beginning. The T.V. continued
  warning us about the flooding rains and hail that
  we could expect as we hung out in the kitchen
  while my mom flipped the hot cakes and made eggs.
  The rain continued to hit the windows and
  lightning would flash every now and again. I
  wasnt too scared. I had been in enough
  thunderstorms to think they really werent that
  bad. Before we sat down to eat, my mom sent me
  down to the basement to get more milk for dinner.
  When I was standing next to the refrigerator, I
  noticed something strange. The sink where the
  water flows from the washing machine was
  overflowing all over onto the floor.

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I grabbed the milk and ran upstairs to get my
mom. I was scared the water would keep coming.
My mom came down and investigated. She called my
Dad at his hotel where he was staying. After she
checked that there was nothing blocking the
drain, he didnt seem too concerned, because
there was a drain under the sink for the water to
go down. Unsure of this assessment, we went
upstairs and ate our pancakes. A nagging worry
and a fear that the water would flood the house
kept us from talking. We listened to the
flooding reports. We ate faster. After dinner
we all went back downstairs. The water kept
coming and coming. It was being pumped from
under the house by a machine called a sump pump.
It is supposed to keep the house from flooding.
But it was creating a very serious problem.
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All of a sudden, my mom looked at my brother and
I in a very serious way and sent us to find
buckets. We returned in record time with two
buckets each. We began a process that we would
continue until about 2 in the morning. As
thunder and lightning lit up the sky, my brother,
mom and I filled buckets from the sink, ran from
the sink in the basement, up the stairs and out
the front door where we poured the water down the
driveway. We were soaked. We could hardly keep
up. Even though we were working at record pace,
the water in the sink never went below 90 full.
We were getting tired, but we knew that if we
stopped, the water would flow over the sides of
the sink and ruin our finished basement.
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• Every now and again, my mom would stop to call
  a friend or relative for help. The people in our
  neighborhood couldnt help because their homes
  were flooding too. It seemed everyone we called
  near or far was having some problem with their
  own home and those that werent, didnt know
  which way to come because many of the roads were
  flooded. Finally at about 1130, my uncle said
  he was just leaving. He lived only about 15
  minutes away. We continued our process, thinking
  that we would have some help to rest our aching
  bodies in a very short time.
• Two hours later, my uncle pulled into the
  driveway. He had ran into closed road after
  closed road. He had to drive very slow, because
  the rain came down so fast, that he could hardly
  see to drive. The four of us worked together for
  another thirty minutes.

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Finally the rain started to die down and the
water level in the sink moved lower than the
half-way mark and continued to lower. My brother
and I were able to stop scooping and rest. The
fear of our house flooding was over. We relaxed
and I dont remember much after that, because I
am sure that I feel asleep soon after stopping.
My body was tired, my mind was tired from feeling
afraid. I will never forget that night for as
long as I live. It was one of the scariest times
in my life. The End
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Afraid

• Frightened
• Scared
• Fearful
• Terrified
• Troubled

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Colors people associate with being afraid
Out of 25 people interviewed, Most people think
of black when they are afraid.
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Afraid Black Shake, worry, scream, Dont move I
am quiet and hug someone. She screams and
shakes. He thinks and worries. Fear is an
emotion Fear is OK. Not brave Scared