There Was a Man

There was a man, a man outside her window. She awoke her husband with a motion both violent and hushed, beneath the covers of their bed. She sensed that his attention was aroused, and yet having woken him said nothing, she was transfixed on the man, both terrified and strangely fascinated, and with a grunt her husband rolled back to sleep.

Really she could only discern the outline, and a few other things which will be mentioned. The outline of a man, a man that could only be described as leering, toward the window, and entirely still besides. He appeared physically fit, and somewhat tall, although all in all of average build. For some reason, the realization that the door to her bedroom was wide open increased her paralyzing panic. A thought flittered through her mind, “I am becoming insane.” She felt that in the moment, and all together like a psychotic wave, this was occurring, a labryinthe of mental horror descending quickly, entrapping her, beyond the bounds of her control.

She noticed now, this, one among the aforementioned other things noticed about the man and his presence, that he actually appeared to be impossibly still. A rush of relief came; it was a collection, albeit a sinister one, of shadows resembling a man, cast by the moonlit landscape of her front yard.

But with a rush resembling that which brought the relief, the anxiety and even terror (that sort of terror which is instinctual, which under normal circumstances mandates the person flee, flee before perhaps a ferocious tiger in some primordial jungle pounces on the victim) returned with a vengeance, and invaded her mind with an overwhelming dread surpassing the previous fear and intrigue. Because it was not a shadow, she could see the bush, the tree branches waving directly behind him, the panes of glass in front of him. He was not three feet from the window.


She leapt over her husband, and arrived on the floor with a thud, on the opposite side of the room from the bay window. She had begun to cry and wiped away fierce tears from beneath her forehead, which suddenly throbbed with a painful headache. The ordeal of staring at the figure had lasted about ten seconds. The woman got up, and stumbled in the direction of the doorway. She braced the frame with both hands, and paused for a moment without looking over her shoulder. Her head pressed against the wall as she heaved with fright, before she pulled the door open.

She let herself tumble through the threshold and collapsed; she sat trembling, writhing with fear on the floor in the hallway. The woman began crawling backwards with her eyes on the open doorway, moving as if the man had burst through the window and was approaching her slowly, menacingly in the hall. As she envisioned him standing there by the window, she contemplated her situation. She was as much horrified by the phantom outside her house, as at her own curious omission. Why had she not insisted that her husband wake up, help her? Strangely, she felt somehow as if it were a fated mistake, that he could not have helped her. Something inside her had wanted to face this deadly enigma alone.

Which was what she at last decided to do. Having left the room she hadn’t had a plan, an idea of where to turn. But now she got up and took something from the bathroom mirror cabinet, and slammed it shut with such a force that it cracked in two, and one half toppled out of the casing, and fell headlong toward the tiled floor. She hadn’t seen the mirror break and had turned for the front door with determination. It shattered on the ground a few feet behind her, but at the sound she almost died from shock and from anticipation of the events of the coming moments; she turned instantly toward her bedroom door. With eyes squeezed shut she waited for the pound of footsteps, for the lethal blow to come, be it from the hand of a demon or a man.

She stayed quavering like that for a few moments, hands raised in defense. But after a few moments instead of silence, she squinted open her left eye and saw to her left the real cause of the sound. Having finally exhaled, she re-gathered herself and turned again toward the front door. Now though, the very human figure which had been standing in her garden flung open that very door and crashed toward her like a possessed, raging bull. He let out a cry.

With the few moments, the twelve or so steps between his imposing form and her helpless, frail body, she only saw fit, of all things, to assess him, to take him in. He was striking in appearance if only for the absolutely average, everyday quality to his looks. He had brown hair, blue eyes, an only slightly long nose with pronounced nostrils, and a straight, small mouth, which was currently closed. She drew the most about his state, and perhaps his purpose there from his mouth, these lips. They, more than his eyes, more than his half-heartedly clenched fists, gave away what she perceived most definitely about him, beyond any doubt.

For some reason, one that belonged to the kind of reason which prevailed on another world, a human logic entirely foreign to her, she could tell that this man loved her. The last thing she noticed about the man and his presence was that she knew him from before. He’d been in the Roscoe Street subway station earlier that day, and he’d been staring then, too. And she'd felt the same vague feeling then that she did now, the feeling that she was being intruded upon, coupled with a sort of shameful apprehension. The man had run hard onto the scissors which she had clutched so close to her stomach, which she still held there.

“I’d been there for hours, outside,” spilled from his open mouth. He appeared to have no weapon. Revolutions and emotions that the woman had never dreamt of before, but which would become familiar from then on, held sway in her mind. He became still after a time, there were never any cries of agony, and his body shifted only when hers did, until she let him slump to the floor. She followed suit, and sat there, thinking, for a time.