Mr. Lonely

Writer's Cramp prompt: You come home from work to find a strange looking character feverishly painting something on your garage door. Many of your neighbors have come to watch him work, some of them have set up lawn chairs. What else happens and what do you do?



I stared blankly at the computer screen. The numbers would not type themselves, but I was too tired to finish the paper for my boss. Everything about him annoyed me—those freckles on his cheeks, the big goose egg eyes, the bowed teeth, and his nose up-turned every time he spoke to me. I couldn’t believe that he was making me type up his own separate bank account memoirs… every bit of it. I liked typing, but not that much!

15 minutes until four o’clock... I could clock out then. I could get something to calm my inflamed nerves. I needed to get away from this cruel paper work laid out before me. Kemerie had her first soccer practice of the year after school, and I had to go pick her up. Finally as time rolled around, I finished those last few numbers, slid the paperwork across the desk to his “higher” assistant, and walked out the door after clocking out.

I unlocked my van from a few feet away and laughed at myself as I tripped over an un-tied shoelace. I shoved my purse inside and started the car. The motor was bad, and I wasn’t so sure that I was going to make it home tonight.

Kemerie only had five minutes of practice left when I got there, and she was very reclusive. As I stared at her wind-blown blonde hair and her dingy uniform, I asked her several times what was wrong, and all that she would say was that there was a strange man observing her from across the field for awhile. I looked around and saw no one, so I went ahead and drove home.

As I pulled up into the driveway, Kemerie looked up at me and pointed at a strange figure in the yard. He was carrying a bucket brimming with spray cans, and it looked like he had already done a lot of damage to my garage door. The picture was not clear at all, but I did see blood red paint. The figure had his back to me, and he wore a long, black cloak. I couldn’t fathom how hot he was in it. As he moved slowly towards my garage, I saw his pale white hands. He walked with ease—as if he had no cares in the world. At this point I wasn’t mad about the garage door, or at this strange man, but I was more intrigued about why he was there, and what business he had with Kemerie or me…?

My neighbors were out of their houses, yet no children stood with them. One man living down the street from me was clamoring obnoxiously to the others about a holy war. I soon realized that it was Mr. Lonely—we called him that because his spouse had died, and his children had left him; overtime he had gone crazy.

I pulled in after shooing my neighbors away. He turned around, and I gasped as I saw his face… and the painting before him. It was Kemerie’s father. I hadn’t seen him since we were 17, and I was pregnant with her. He gazed at me with the same gleam in those brown eyes as long before when people used to say that they saw hell’s infernos in them. The image before me was that of a demon wound around a crucifix, smiling. On top of that, a goat head dominated the whole scene. The paint ran off of the garage and had surely stained my freshly put in cement driveway. But the details were so intricate; I couldn’t divert my eyes away from it. Then, he smiled at me out of pure malignancy. A chill ran down my back, and I put my car into drive. I got away as fast as I could. I would not let history repeat itself.





If you like this story and you want to read a sequel, let me know. If I get just 3 people, I will write one!