The page nearly gave me a paper cut as my finger glided across, turning it slowly to the left. 117 to 118. A change. A new beginning. A new place in this binding. My eyes darted to the first black dot, of the many black dots, in the upper left hand corner. Sprawled out across the page, they were painted in specific shapes and formations, in specific lines in specific margins from left to right down the vanilla paper. They had a magical effect. I was here, hunched in this chair in this cafe, with a warm coffee and worn old book for company. But with this story my hands I was really somewhere else. With the sun illuminating this open room, time stood still. While being held captive by words that spun and danced in my mind, I had never felt more free in my life.
But something was off. I looked across the words, but didn’t ready any of them. Without realizing it, the thin hairs on my forearm were already standing up. There was a presence, something unwelcome in this world.
“Hello sir,” a young man announced, “can I help you?”
I looked up. I immediately wish I hadn’t, but like most knee-jerk reactions, my senses betrayed any degree of self-control. That’s when I saw him. Staring back at me.
Not at me.
Through me.
To me. In my direction but at no direction at all. I may even have been a ghost to him. It looked like his attention was deliberate but fleeting, all in one. But whether or not I was real to him, he was a very real to me. Having seemingly appeared from thin air in this cafe, his existence instantly became very real wall between me and the exit. I knew I was stronger than average compared to other girls, but his physical presence loomed over me. Without saying a word, the weight of his still figure imposed a tension in the room.
I didn’t know what to think, but because I couldn’t think. My nerves pinched, and for the first time I understood what it was like to feel your skin crawl.
Suddenly an alter-sense took over, and like gears my limbs shifted into motion. My legs stood me up, and walked me away. My arms reached out, opened and closed, and my hands turned the lock on the bathroom door behind me. Hoping for safety, I found myself trapped. For an eternity that lasted nearly ten minutes, I held my breath, not willing to move.
Like I was spectating a scene from my own horror film, I waited to hear what would happen next. But no sound came. No gunshot. No explosion. No scream. No young man asking him to leave. It was like the writers forgot to fill in this part of the script.
Daring myself, I creaked the door open and peaked through. And sure enough, nothing had changed. The man was still looming, unbothered but fixated. It was difficult to tell if he was in his own mind, but he was certainly out of place here.
Without so much as a word, my world upside down. In one moment I was enjoying the peace of a sunny afternoon, the next I caged myself away. I wanted to scream, but I kept perfectly silent, except for the uncontrollable pounding in chest.
Finally, I was done waiting. I had to get out.
I knew I wasn’t brave enough to be still any more. Eyes down, I put one foot in front of the other. I moved quickly, deliberately. Slowing only a half-second to grab my book, I walked around him without so much as looking through him, and never back.
I walked myself outside and over to the next street, 118W to 119W, and across the next sidewalk. Three blocks later, I finally drew in a deep breath, my lungs shaking as they expanded. Pausing briefly, I clutched my book tightly underneath my arm. I couldn’t remember anything I had read. The story, the many black dots, I wished I could turn back. But I didn’t care. Now it just felt like a page in a chapter I wish I never read.
Stories About Stuff 