I am extremely ticklish. People have used tickling as a weapon against me for my entire life. As a form of what we called “torture” while we were children, my brother would pin me to the ground, hold down my limbs and tickle me. As a precursor, he would chase me around the house with an outstretched finger which signified what was coming. This made me scream like a maniac and I would get in trouble. My father also tickled me; I often found myself squashed under one of his legs watching my brother under the other, while both of us shrieked and squealed from the pain of being compressed by a leg and also from the intensity of the inexplicable, uncontrollable laughter itself. The scariest part of of being tickled was the laughter of such extremity from which I could not breathe. My lungs tightened, not allowing me to breathe in… I sometimes thought I would die on the spot.

I had a recurring dream in which I was attached to a wall, bound with metal bands at my wrists and ankles. My body formed an X-shape, exposing my underarms and feet. An unidentified character tickled me and I was helpless because there was no one around to release me and I could not do a single thing help myself. And whatever was tickling me had no mercy.

I later began to wonder about the origin of this dream. Was it because I hated the feeling of being tickled so immensely, or was it because I was afraid of feeling defenseless? Each time I had been seriously tickled, I had been in helpless situations. The tickling monster in my dreams may not have been so evil to me because of what it made me feel on the outside, but by its mercilessness and the way it affected my inner self.

Admitting this makes me feel like a chicken, but… the ending of the first Happy Potter movie has haunted me for years. The particularly scary scene takes place in a chamber, while Harry and his professor stand inside a circle of flames. Professor Quirrell unveils that he is actually He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named by unwinding his head wrap and revealing the face of Harry’s assailant on the other side of his head. Every time, this makes me reach for the nearest object at hand to cover my eyes.

I had never thought of this before, but by Homer’s definition, Professor Quirrell/He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is a monster. I had always categorized him as an evil sorcerer… so in this case, does evil sorcerer = monster?! Professor Quirrell/He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is psychologically threatening to his pupils while he is a professor at Hogwarts, and is most definitely threatening while he is exposed as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in more than one way—in fact, he is threatening in all ways. Moving down Homer’s list of criteria; the evil wizard is impure. However, is he/they an example of fusion of fission?  They are two entities—one of a professor and one of a dark wizard—living on one body simultaneously. Since Professor Quirrell such is a devoted follower of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he does not make decisions based his own needs, but of the dark force he is serving. This complete indoctrination of one’s soul almost morphs the professor with the Dark Lord, aside from the actual linkage of their bodies. This sure sounds like fusion. But, they are not technically morphed into one identity since they both have a face on either side of the head and have their own train of thought. They could even have a conversation. This very well may be fission.

A question still remains: is He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named still a monster when he takes his own form?

Of the two biggest fears I had during my childhood, one was about a million times less troubling; this was because it could be defied by means of logical reasoning. I was afraid of being snatched from my room by a stranger—a human stranger. Consequently, I spent many nights—some of them hot, sticky summer nights—covered by a blanket from head to toe. I reasoned that if this stranger were to set foot in my room, he would not see me. So until I’d be taken into a more comforting world of thoughts and dreams, I would lie sweating and breathing in a way which made my body move in the slightest way possible.

The second fear was difficult to bear because I did not have a method of coping with it. I was never one to be cowardly, until (accordingly) it came to a single episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog. This is when I first encountered the character which haunted me for years following. After seeing this unfamiliar creature ONCE, I was not able to turn on the beloved TV without boiling with anxiety, in horror that I’d see it again. Even after more than a decade’s time, I cannot forget its purple hair, indefinite body, intimidating voice, and ominous environment.

This creature affected me the way it did because I did not have a way of handing it when it entered my thoughts. I could tolerate sweating profusely under a thick blanket on a summer night. I could not, however, stop watching TV. And the seconds of darkness on the screen in between the moment of pressing the power button and the image appearing on the three-foot-thick television were torture, as I brought in all my limbs and squinted my eyes and practically punched the volume lowering button. If I knew (or convinced myself of) ANY of the answers to this series of questions, dealing with this fear would have been easier; what could it do to me? What will it do to me? What does it want from me? How can it be pacified?