Pompholugophobia

From The Abyss, July 1999 edition, vol. 1.6

Her foot descended on the accelerator with the same alacrity it would on a cockroach, and her Aries did its best to respond appropriately. She was NOT going to miss this light. She was NOT going to wait in line at this intersection again. But the Civic in front had other plans for her; it slowed to a stop as the light turned red. She stomped on the brake and released a cascade of vulgarity at the driver. She had much better things to do than wait around uselessly, but was now as trapped as the rat her cat had killed yesterday. Suddenly she blinked and squinted at what she first took for an optical illusion, but no, they were real. Floating through the air. Wafting toward her. Surrounding her car. Why would someone do this? No one could possibly be having fun while stuck at a red light for the second time. But there they were, so the only explanation was that someone was doing it just to annoy her. It was working. She craned her neck around and around to see where they were coming from, but the cursed things were swirling everywhere. This only happened when she was in her car, stuck at a red light. She would swear no one ever did this elsewhere. A thin layer of sweat spontaneously formed all over her body and proceeded to get thicker. She peered hopelessly at the traffic light, desperately seeking the color green. She had to get out of there. They were mocking her, the whole horde, bumping at her car, obscuring her vision, splattering all over her windshield. She began to panic. She just couldn’t take it any more; she had Pompholugophobia, the fear of bubbles.