It's time for me to break free from being scared | Matt Mohan-Hickson

There is no terrifying incident seared into my memory at a ridiculously young age. But I think the moment I experienced fear and understood what it meant, in some way, shape or form, came when watching an episode of Thomas the Tank Engine.

I know, you are probably thinking – wait, how is a children’s show that scary?

You see there was an episode involving a ghost train; I can still remember the way ribbons that were attached to its body fluttered in the moonlight.

I was so spooked I fled the living room.

From that moment onwards I was so scared of ghosts that I would have to sleep with the cover over my head. Apparently to my young mind that was the only logical way to protect myself from spirits.

Fear is an emotion I know well, perhaps second only to self-loathing, but in 2020 it has been a nearly omnipresent feeling.

Everywhere I turn it is there. I step outside for a walk, it steps out with me. Pop into the supermarket, the worst case scenarios flash through my head.

I know they say that young people don’t have to worry about the virus but that doesn’t ease my mind.

I seemingly always get the flu in September and January, each year like clockwork, and I’m left bedridden for days.

What if I get the coronavirus and get it bad? Or get it and pass it on to other people.

It’s why despite the Eat Out to Help Out scheme taking place last month, I couldn’t be tempted to go out for food.

The idea of going to a restaurant or a pub just struck my heart with fear.

But I realised that I can’t shy away from society forever and on a spur of the moment decision, in a bid to escape my mind for a few hours, I made my way to the Vue cinema.

At first I almost turned away and chickened out but I steeled myself and forced myself to go in.

Taking my seat, I felt an initial surge of panic bubbling up but as I looked around and saw the rest of the crowd was wearing face masks it eased my worry.

I’m not sure when life will feel normal again, but at least I took a baby step away from fear’s all-encompassing embrace.

Stop the pandemic-themed adverts already, please

You don’t need me to tell you that 2020 has been a very unsettling year with a lot of upheaval and turmoil.

And if you are a company producing a new advert, it is not as simple as it once would have been.

But do all adverts have to be lockdown-themed now?

Do we really need every single advert to also remind us about the pandemic?

I am dreading the John Lewis advert later in the year, which will inevitably feature someone missing their family and friends before receiving a laptop at Christmas and being reunited over video chat.

You can just hear the schmaltzy cover of We’ll Meet Again sung by one pop-star or another that is almost guaranteed to feature.

Real-life reminders of a world we didn’t get to live in

If you’ve ever watched a work of post-apocalyptic fiction – or played a video game from that genre – then you may have spotted how often they have little nods to the world that came before.

So I’ve found it quite unnerving to see how these little details from make-believe disasters are now a part of our real life.

A faded flyer for a club night at the end of March stuck to a power box. Film posters advertising release dates in April for films that have still yet to come out.

They feel like time-capsules from a world that never was.

Relics from an alternative version of March 2020, one where you would have taken the family to see Mulan at Vue and then gone to Nandos for tea.