Phobophobia: When You’re Afraid of Being Afraid of the Fear of Fear

 

Dune the Awakening: The Interlude

The endless dunes do strange things to your mind. Or, to be precise, they do strange things to Dave’s mind. The parched throat, the lack of water, the incessant slaughter of strangers to extract their precious bodily fluids—it was all too much for him. To make matters worse, the sight of their humble 4x4 rock hut sitting next to magnificent palaces triggered an advanced case of House Envy. Once House Envy sets in, it’s all downhill: Claustrophobia, Grammophobia (fear of grammar or sometimes writing in general), Thanatophobia (fear of death), Tropophobia (fear of moving or making changes) , Trypophobia (aversion to clusters of small holes), and even Basiphobia (fear of falling) took turns bouncing around in his brain like a deranged bingo machine. Since there is nothing to fear except fear itself, Dave naturally developed Phobophobia too (the fear of phobias).

Thus began Dave’s solo week of base redesign while the rest of us went AWOL, possibly to preserve what little sanity we had left.

Walls were raised to cathedral-like heights to eliminate those oppressive low ceilings. Stairs with safety rails appeared to keep us from our usual habit of gravity-testing. Straight walls were replaced with flowing, curving surfaces that would make Gaudí weep with envy. Holes in the floor were patched (boo) and several medium-sized cisterns were installed and miraculously filled with actual water instead of recycled human plasma.

A mezzanine now suspended the power generators off the floor, separating them from the water tanks and, more importantly, from Craig. Out back, Dave constructed a massive switchback staircase climbing the cliffs. It was so extensive that it could double as an Inca pilgrimage site.

Craig, naturally, contributed a sniper nest. This inspired Dave to demolish the third floor entirely, raise the roof on the second floor, move Craig’s bed as far away as physically possible, and install crinkled paper on the floor so you could hear Craig sneaking about at night like some sort of carnivorous marsupial.

For Myles’ latest hobby—grappling practice—Dave threw together a five-story bastion complete with a ladder and trapdoor. Craig’s multi-floor death trap was also retrofitted: slightly less deadly but far more challenging thanks to the addition of walls. And through it all, every attempt was made to preserve Zaph’s beloved CCF lighting strips on the garage floor because priorities.

At long last, Dave could return to his new hobby: wandering the desert at night, waving a sickle over flowers to harvest water like some demented Grim Reaper of botany. All in all, it was slightly less murdery than harvesting blood.

Myles surveyed the sprawling complex, nodded in admiration, and finally voiced the question on everyone’s mind:

“So then you pack this up and bring it with you on your bike when we move to a new spot next week?”

Dave froze mid-sickle swing as Metathesiophobia (fear of change) dug its claws into his soul.