Achluophobia, by Saad Ali

Poppet 3, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Canada) 2020

Achluophobia
​
for Raza Khan, Amna Khan & Bilal Khan
 
‘Til the present day, I cannot go to bed without the bedside table lamp light on. Sometimes, I even look under the bed and behind the toilet door and scan the closet – just to reassure myself that there’s no inanimate/insentient doll hiding in my room; waiting to become animate/sentient as soon as I migrate to Alam-e-Araf.* No exaggerations, (I swear to God).
 
Yes, you guessed it right! It was Dan Mancini’s Child’s Play that had instilled achluophobia in me; NOT the hard rock song, “Fear of the Dark,” by one of my favourite British Rock Bands, Iron Maiden. AND I tell you, it was definitely NO “child’s play” for me to watch this so-called movie for kids in my pre-teen days during the late 80s! AND for a while, the achluophobia had even evolved into nyctophobia, too. The theological ideas – “Djinn” and the likes – had a great part to play in aggravating the said condition. No exaggerations, (I swear to God).
 
One humid evening, during the Summer of ‘89 CE, all the impish peers ‘round our block left their BMX and ET Kuwahara and BSA Panther (mountain) bikes on the rectangular-ish porch at my house and rushed to my parents’ room to insert the VHS cassette into the VCR – while our mums had stepped out for their evening walk ‘round the military cantonment area; while our dads were away on the mock war games – and transformed the room into a Greek Odeon (Theatre of Dionysus-style). I was only 9. The horror feature film was rated PG 13+. No exaggerations, (I swear to God).
 
‘Til the present day, I believe, I would feel far safer six-feet-underground – without a need for a bulb – than muster up the courage to watch some “djinn” possessing a little boy-doll. No exaggerations, (I swear to God).
 
Recently, I’ve learnt that Chucky now has a wife, too; the whole idea has now grown into an ‘Urban Legend’/‘The Chucky Cult,’ too! Is that true? I really hope they haven’t made any children, have they? We cannot afford another species – Homo Chuckiens – evolving on our Ellipsoid now! AND I certainly cannot afford my lygophobia exacerbating either. No exaggerations, (I swear to God).
 
Saad Ali

* Alam-e-Araf (Islamic Theology): An ethereal realm where one’s soul travels to during sleep and/or state of meditation.

Saad Ali (b. 1980 CE in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up and educated in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He is a bilingual poet-philosopher and literary translator. His new collection of poems is titled Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrastic poetry and micro/flash fictions into Urdu: Lorette C. Luzajic: Selected Ekphrases: Translated into Urdu (2023). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. He has had poems published in Synchronized Chaos. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. He has had ekphrases showcased at an art exhibition, Bleeding Borders, curated at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Kafka, Lispector, et alia. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit: www.saadalipoetry.com; www.facebook.com/owlofpines.