I remember reading somewhere that the very first memory you can recall in your lifetime says a lot about the direction your life will take. My first memory was waking up from a nap on top of a giant pile of rugs in a sketchy flea market that no longer exists. I really don’t think says anything about me except that I have this uncanny ability to fall asleep in the weirdest places.
My second memory, however, was Furnace Man.
Furnace Man lived in my grandma’s old blue boiler furnace, hence the name. He was tallish, wore a plaid shirt, and had no head. Every now and then, he’d leave the furnace to stomp around my grandma’s house. I always imagined him dancing to a deep, booming beat, like some kind of creepy timpani. Also, he had a name, but whatever it was is now buried in the annals of my stupid brain. I think it might have been Ernie or Tim or something.
Needless to say, Furnace Man wasn’t real. There never was a flannel-wearing, headless being living in the furnace, but that didn’t stop him from being real to me. And keep in mind, I was like, two. Toddlers aren’t supposed to be scared of things. They’re supposed to be dumb and innocent and prone to questionable decisions like drawing on walls or eating Legos. They don’t stare blankly into the dark abyss of a utility room, expecting to see a decapitated hipster Slenderman crawling out of a furnace. I would avoid the room at all costs, or else freak out and cry, and I literally didn’t know the words to articulate what it was I was even afraid of.
I guess this is a good indicator that I was destined for a life of anxiety issues. Furnace Man never died. Not even when I found out years later that “Furnace Man” was just my dad getting stuck in a too-small shirt one Christmas Eve while trying it on in the utility room. My mind took the smallest, stupidest memory and twisted it into something horrifying. It’s almost like my head has this amazing ability to make monsters out of nothing. But isn’t that basically what anxiety is in the first place?
JESSA JOYCE 