Some childhood fears pass quickly. Others stay because they felt real. The memory of walking along a road and freezing beneath the shadow of a church is not dramatic in the usual sense. There were no screams. No running footsteps. Just a child stopping still on a pavement, certain that something above was watching.
The church itself was not the problem. The trouble came before that. Something waited between the car park and the shops. It sat high above on the church, silent but certain.
The Shape on the Steeple
Children often see the world differently. A shadow can become a figure. A statue can become alive. The human mind fills in gaps when something feels unfamiliar or threatening. Yet what is striking in this memory is not simply imagination. It is conviction.
The Very Terrible Thing was not vague in feeling. It had shape. It pointed. It looked down. It existed, at least in the mind of the child who felt its gaze.
And perhaps that is what matters most. Whether anyone else saw it is secondary. The experience was real because the fear was real.
When Adults Cannot See What You See
There is a quiet sadness in the moment when in response to his son’s question his father looks up and sees only a steeple. He explains what he understands.
But the explanation does not remove the fear. That gap between adult logic and childhood perception is familiar to many people. A parent may not dismiss a fear outright, but they cannot step inside it either. The child stands alone with something unseen.
It raises a question that often stays unspoken in childhood. If no one else can see it, does that mean it is not there?
Why Did It Only Appear There?
What makes this memory even more curious is that The Very Terrible Thing did not invade dreams or follow home. It did not lurk in bedrooms or hallways. It waited only at that church. It appeared only when walking past.
The child grows older. One day, the figure is gone. Was it ever there in the way it was believed to be? Reading this story you cannot help but think about what you would do if you were in the same situation.
Years later, the memory still returns. Not often. But sometimes. That is how certain fears behave. They settle into memory. They do not disturb daily life, yet they are never fully dismissed. The mind circles back to them from time to time, asking questions that were never answered.
Why me? Why there? Why a church? Why only then? The absence of resolution is part of what makes it compelling.
Reflecting on Our Own Early Fears
Most people can recall something similar. A house that felt wrong. A shadow in a hallway. A place that seemed charged with something unseen.
As adults, we may explain these experiences logically. Light angles. Imagination. Anxiety. But the emotional truth of them remains. The child version of ourselves felt something strongly. That feeling deserves attention rather than dismissal.
Stories like this offer recognition and remind us that childhood perception shapes how we move through the world long after we grow up.
If this reflection stirred a memory of your own, A Different Approach and Other Stories by Alex Grant is worth reading. The collection explores moments that feel ordinary on the surface yet carry something deeper beneath. It invites readers to revisit the spaces where fear and memory quietly meet.
If you enjoy the moral unease of Black Mirror, the dark irony of Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected, or the quiet dread of Ian McEwan’s early works, you’ll be riveted by Alex Grant’s unforgettable short fiction.
Here is a link to purchase: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF3PZ1QT/.
