Pit Of Dread

It cannot be explained. They almost never can. The omen that only you receive; that only you notice. The digging at your core that cannot be understood until the moment has already passed.

The day had been going quite well; nothing out of the ordinary or uncommon. Yet as I sat in traffic, waiting for the light to turn green so I could pull into the parking lot of work, belting out my voice to whatever was playing at that point, a twinge within me formed.

I wouldn't call it pain. I wouldn't call it terror or fear. It wasn't anxiety or happiness, nor was it anything akin to a feeling of euphoria or excitement.

It felt like dread.

The word dread is commonly attached to words like, 'fear' and 'anxiety', which I already said it felt unlike. Dread itself - the word that is - has a deeper, harder, more raw meaning or feeling behind it. It seems more powerful and more potent than 'fear'.

As the day passed, the feeling lingered. At times it subsided and let me laugh with my coworkers, yet it never really left. It was persistent of staying a deep pit within me. Whenever I thought that perhaps it was finally gone, it jumped back at me in surprise. Each time the feeling grew more powerful. By the time we were closing the store, my manager, who's become more of a friend than a coworker, told me he would be going camping this weekend - which is unusual. I'm not used to not seeing him. I told him to be careful - I felt like I had to. At a point I had said to myself, 'That's stupid, he'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen. You're just being paranoid'.

And then a feeling stronger than the dread erupted, combating that dread and was like a klaxon to my system. I had to tell him to be careful, that I was having this feeling inside of me. He laughed at first, asking if I thought that he was prone to getting in trouble and I told him that it was the feeling that told me that since I wouldn't be seeing him, I wanted to let him know to be safe. He said he would, and the bad feeling was probably karma - someone near me would be faced with their repercussions to past actions. I told all of my coworkers to be careful; I didn't want anyone to go without a warning. If that's what the feeling is that continues to linger within me is.

"Ever have a bad feeling about something?"