I woke up screaming, “Trap is going to get me!” I had just had an awful nightmare, but it wasn’t the first time. The same nightmare had haunted several nights of my childhood already.

I was at a festival. My whole family was there—my mom, Daddy, Aunt Clarisa, and two of my cousins. Music was playing, but it was faded and hard to hear. The Ferris Wheel was spinning and people walked around everywhere. My family was talking and munching on funnel cakes; I was spinning in circles, twirling my new dress. No one was watching me.
A man ornamented in a hideous clown costume had been handing out balloons to young children when he noticed that no one’s eyes were on me. He began walking my way. He knelt down in front of me and smiled.”Would you like a balloon,” he asked. I stepped back cowardly.

His smile frightened me. His teeth were yellow, gold caps covered his molars, sharp fangs replaces his canines, and his gums were brown and an ugly shade of dark grey. When he talked, his breath smelt of curdled milk.
I screamed and ran in the opposite direction, away from the clown, away from the circus, away from my family. When I finally quit running long enough to catch a glimpse of my surroundings, I realized that I was very far from the festival. The place I ran to was very desolate—there were no people, no street lights, no buildings; nothing but an endless floor made of blue-glass bricks and an endless sky. I felt like I was stuck inside of a video game.
I kept walking, afraid that the clown may still be following me. I came to a place that had appeared the same as the rest of the ground, but it was only made to look that way. It was really a deep hole. I fell in. Before I had the chance to attempt climbing out, the clown appeared above me and began laughing. His laugh was full of pleasure and evil deceit. As he laughed, he pushed bricks on top of me. I always woke up at that point—being buried alive by a malicious, laughing clown.
I named him Trap. He not only haunted my sleep during the night, but he also haunted me during the day. As a young child I refused to walk across carpet. I leaped on furniture, like a chimpanzee, to make it across the room I was in or into the next room. Most of the time, if there wasn’t enough furniture for me to make it where I wanted to go, my parents would carry me, but one time they tried make me walk. My mother took my hand and tried to pull me off the sofa. When I refused, she gave me a demonstration of walking across the floor. “See, Nae-Neigh, it’s fine. Nothing is going to happen,” she assured me.
A serious expression covered my face and my eyes grew very wide. “No, Mommy! Trap doesn’t want to get you. He only wants me to die,” I said. I saw the disappointment in my mother’s face, but I felt that I had to stay on the couch. I was very afraid that Trap was going to get me. She never tried to make me walk across the floor again.
I don’t think of Trap in the same way anymore. He doesn’t scare me like He used to, but I am still very cautious of him. I know that Trap was nothing more than a metaphor in my nightmares—a metaphor of the devil. As I try to walk the narrow path, living my life for Jesus, the devil will do all he can to cloud my vision—walk in front of me with a handful of balloons, set traps for me to fall into, laugh at me when I fall, leave me where no one but Jesus can find me; however, there was one thing that never occurred in my nightmare. The only thing I remember now is that even when I do fall into the devil’s traps, Jesus is there to save me. He is the Lord and His truth will reign forever, regardless of what the devil tries to make me believe.