Ha!

Contributor: Michael White


Giant centipedes terrify me. Giant centipedes have always terrified me. It might have a little to do with their many legs or their mini eyes or maybe those two horn-like things, which sometimes curl back to look like a gentleman’s mustache.

Whatever it is about giant centipedes, which continue to terrify me even now, my greatest fear, my strangest fear, this outrageous fear in me is that someday I will turn into one. I know this to be an illogical fear. But if you, like me, had way back seen a giant centipede tear a snake in two, then you, like me, might be afraid of the bastards too.

And maybe if you had been bitten by said snake and paralyzed by said snake and forced to watch said snake be torn in two, you, like me, might have experienced a giant centipede crawl about you with its many legs, look about you with its mini eyes, and prickyoukissyou with those two horn-like things, which sometimes curl back to look like a gentleman’s mustache.

Maybe. But I suppose I cannot be sure. What I can be sure of is what terrifies me, and what terrifies me is the giant centipede.

Now, I have been told before of the exotic tastes of those beautiful sun-dried Chinamen to the East—how on some streets and some stands one can buy a fat-fried centipede on a stick for cheap, maybe one American dollar or two American dollars, though never enough to paralyze your wallet. I wish to travel there someday. I will travel there someday. I am traveling there at this precise moment and on this precise plane of planes like a jet-fueled throne in the sky. And when I arrive, I will pay up to five American dollars to trample over my fear, tooth-by-tooth and bite-by-bite. In fact, make it ten American dollars, which I am afraid is worth much less now than before, but then again most things are.

Whatever the cost, whatever my fear, and however the giant centipede appeals and pleads, I will chomp down like a vice grip on its mini eyes, nibble on its many legs, and pick my teeth with those two horn-like things, which sometimes curl back to look like a gentleman’s mustache.

You might be asking yourself, “Why would he perform such a frightening act?” Well I can tell you the answer to your quandary is both simple and sound—this is so with most quandaries after you have cleared away the grime of pretension. I answer you thus: I do this because I can, because the fear-ridden often become the best monsters, and because someone along the broken road once told me, “if you enjoy frightening others, you will be reborn as a centipede.” Very well, I say, very well—Ha!


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Originally from Chicago, IL, Michael White is a current full-time student at Full Sail University in Winter Park, FL. He is working toward his bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment.
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