Fear. It's the feeling you get way down in your guts. Nothing else feels anything like it and it's impossible to mistake it for anything else. The image of the shark coming up from the deep waters on the famous Jaws (1975) poster gave me a life-long fear of the ocean and its sharks.

It did not help that my father took me to Universal Studios as a young child and sat me (purposefully) in the exact spot the shark pops out at on the Jaws ride. If it was possible for a young boy to have a heart attack that would have been an ideal time.

It is hard to imagine a more terrifying way to die. In the film,"Quint", describes the lifeless, black eyes of a shark - like a doll's eyes, he says, only with so many jagged and gnashing teeth.

Sharks never sleep. They are always out there stalking their prey. They stalk my dreams and they adorn my back flesh in permanent ink.

This image scared me and scarred me.
by: SJ Rivera - Writer
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