Cold Dark Water has always been the vision that would send chills thru my body. As long as I remember I?ve been afraid of it. It is in my nightmares when the day?s anxieties seem to be getting the better of me. It is a dark old house and you can hear the water dripping in the basement. It is always flooded down there, deep, cold and daring me to go down the stairs. The dripping sounds echo through a house that is otherwise still as a cave. Over and over I would stand at the top of the stairs and stare down into the damp darkness. I would awaken in a cold sweat with my heart pounding. On one occasion I went down the stairs. The basement was divided with wooden scaffolds crossing the water like catwalks. The dripping was deafening when suddenly the rhythm was broken by the distinct whimper of a child. The child was in the water, its mother standing on a plank that was bouncing with her cries for someone to help her child. ?Get over your fear,? I screamed to myself and jumped into the water. I lifted the child up to the outstretched arms of its mother, then pulled myself up onto the plank. I looked up and mother and child were gone, no sign of them. Gone also seemed to be the intense fear I had once felt. Gone also was that dream ? at least for now.