paranoia

when i was a child, my mother told me, i couldn't sleep in a room where there was a face watching me. this eventually developed into an aversion to anything vaguely resembling a face: watches, some paintings, certain fruits. in their presence the child won't sleep.

later on as an adolescent, i went through a period of time where i just couldn't sleep at all. i would turn in my bed, read into the night, walk bleary eyed through the day, be gruff and confused. one day i worked out what it was: a coat hanging on a door, looked like the shape of a man, watching me, stalking me. i removed the coat, and sleep came back.

a sudden memory: in a classroom, having to come up with examples of different tenses and conjugations in the passive form in english, the only verb i could think of was "to watch": i am being watched, i was watched, i was being watched, i have been watched, i will be watched, i have been being watched...