Stranger Man

By that point I had completely forgotten about the stranger that haunted me. When my roommates’ friends left, I realized I had managed not to think about the man even once. Afterwards my roomate did the thing he always does and gave me a little lecture on how I was embarrassing or rude—honestly the details are a little foggy, but I guess it’s not important. After the dishes were cleaned, I climbed out onto my balcony for a good-night cigarette and some innocent people watching. I saw my downstairs neighbor on the street, walking his giant hound (I always hated dogs and do not know the different breeds). I saw the crazy lady who lives down the block doing cartwheels up and down the street in front of her apartment. I saw the couple who live right across from us making out furiously, half naked, in their living room, which I admit I watched for a little too long before decency caught up with me and I looked elsewhere. I hate it when they do that in the window. I always watch them for a little—I guess I get bored or jealous or a little lonely sometimes.

Just as I was ashing my cigarette on the rail I saw him. I flicked the butt away and tried to shake the image out of my head. I looked up into the stars to ground myself, and as I turned back to climb into my apartment his movement caught the corner of my eye. Down the street but before the next block, on the roof, there was a girl. She wore short blond hair and pink dotted pajamas. She was a little far but I could tell she must have been a teenager because of her insecure posture and the color of her face, all pink with acne. Standing just behind her was the same man. This time he was thin and gaunt and tall, with spindly arms that almost reached knees. His pale bald head was smooth as stone and glistened in the streetlights. Great hollow pits swallowed his sunken lightless eyes. I was completely frozen in fear or shock or pure cowardice and just stood there choking on the scene. He placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned into her ear, whispering something which made the girl start crying or laughing. I couldn’t tell. The man stroked her back once and took a step back, veiled in the darkness except for the hand which rested on her shoulder. She took a step up to the edge, wobbled on the tin raingutter, stretched out her arms and leaned over.

I told the police that I had seen a man up there with her that night, that he had whispered something to her, that he must have encouraged her or talked her into it. They told me that the building had security cameras and she had been alone. They also told me that trauma from watching something like that can play tricks on the mind. They asked me if I had been intoxicated, I lied, and they gave me a number for a headshrinker. I never called, I’m not crazy. I was given the week off of work and I spent it trying to make sense of everything. Who was this man? How did he change himself? Why was he tormenting me? Everyday I walked by the diner, by the alley, by the building. I never saw him.

For weeks afterwards I had this recurring dream, or more accurately, nightmare about him. It was the same thing everytime; I would be swimming in this tiny pond, no more than a couple meters across but very deep, so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. Around the pond was a field that stretched out forever, filled with longrasses, orchids, white roses, daffodils and tulips, hydrangeas, carnations, marigolds and red poppies. I would be doing laps around my little pool for hours and hours and all of a sudden there he was. At first he was only a speck of dust in the wind, a thousand miles away. But he grew closer and larger, and as he approached the speck became a shadow which spread over the fields of flowers, faster and wider. As he spread himself over the field, the flowers shrunk and were sucked into the ground as if some evil hand was pulling them down. In their place, lifeless crumbling limbs would sprout up like weeds. Hands and feet, arms and toes, dead flesh arose everywhere the shadow hid the even light of the sky from the ground. As he reached my watery sanctuary, he became a man again, his eyes shining an awful orange hew in the light of the pale sky. I could never stop myself from swimming over to the edge that he peered over. I would raise myself out of the pond, into his eyes and everytime he would smile and lean into me. I would lean into him and press my lips against his, without ever taking my eyes off of his. Just as we kissed I would be sucked down into the endless depth of the pond, to disappear. Then I would wake up, usually soaked in sweat (sometimes hard) and always shaking feverishly. I tried every combination that usually works: sleeping pills, beer, vodka, weed, xanax, fucking acid, nothing worked.

I lied before when I said the first time I saw him was at the diner. That was the first time I’d seen him in years but I knew I recognized him. When I was a kid, like eleven or twelve, my mom picked me up from my dad’s place after a weekend with him. She was in a terrible fucking mood, I think her boyfriend broke up with her or she got fired or some other bullshit. Something like that happened every couple months so I didn’t think it was a big deal. I do remember how her breath stung my eyes and nose when she hugged me. I also remember her eyes, they were wide and hollow, like she wasn’t there. She kissed me on the ear and whispered that she loved me and was happy to see me. She put me in the back seat, which I always hated and after about twenty minutes of swerving in and out of the wrong lane, she finally flipped the car. I don’t really remember much, except for the warmth running from my ear, down my neck. It felt kind of nice like when you start peeing yourself. The only other thing I remember was him. My mom was mumbling incoherently, hanging through the windshield, and he came out of the darkness into the light of the head beams. He was this tanned giant with tight blond curls and sailor tattoos. He brushed her hair and whispered something in her ear, then he walked around to my door and looked at me with this tender pity. He smiled at me, and walked back into the dark.



Ewan Lloyd is a writer and bartender living in New York. He dropped out of University in 2020. He spends much of his time doing activities with friends.