Please, take me away from here, I want to scream out the window. The urge to run out the front door and across the street, take his hand, and leave overwhelms every inch of my being, like my body is straining toward him even as I stand still.
But I know as soon as I look away, he’ll be gone. He always is.
So instead, I watch him. We stare at each other, no movement and no expressions beside the stray tears spilling down my cheeks. Why is he doing this to me? Is it a game? A test?
Maybe it is.
As soon as I reach up to rub the tears from my eyes, I realize my mistake. My heart fractures when I open my eyes and the space under the streetlight is empty.
Gone again. But where?
His appearances are becoming more and more frequent, which must meansomething.
“Almost done?” Joel’s voice startles me from my brooding.
“Yeah, just a couple more to finish up.”
“Alright. I’m going to bed then.”
“Okay, goodnight.” I breathe a silent sigh of relief that he doesn’t pressure me for sex tonight.
He leaves the room without responding, but it doesn’t bother me. My mind is on something—someone—else.
I finish the dishes, my skin turning pink as I let the hot water scald my hands. It burns, but at least it allows me to feelsomething.
An hour later, I slip into the cool sheets of my bed. Joel’s snores fill the dark room, but I close my eyes and tune them out.
The exhaustion from being on-edge all day drags me into sleep within minutes, and I search for him. The man whose name I don’t know, whose face I can’t quite see, but who calls to me all the same.
“Find me.”
Every night, the same man obscured in shadows, speaking the same words. I know how it ends, but I chase after him anyway.
When he comes into view, fear and hope overtake me in equal measure. Shadows warp around him, but he stands there like he always does.
He grins, and I stop in my tracks, frozen with something between fear and reverence.
I try to speak, but the words catch in my throat, and when I reach for him, my hands fall through air.
Too soon, I’m awake, with the shape of his silhouette still burning behind my eyes.
Each night, he grows clearer. Each day, the real world grows duller. I’d much rather stay in my dreams permanently at this point. I’m already halfway there, sleeping hours longer than I should only for more time with him.
Maybe I am going crazy.
Joel’s snores prevent me from falling back asleep, and I stare at the ceiling with my mind racing. I usually can sleep through the night without issue. It’s the one thing that gives me reprieve from the dullness of my life. I don’t want to be awake, because every time I see this man, it only makes me question my sanity more.
What if I am imagining him? It seems more and more likely that I might be. I don’t know if I’m losing my mind or if the world is finally pulling back the veil to show me something real. I only know that when I’m asleep, I can finally feel.
Something fundamental has shifted within me tonight, somewhere between the dread of another evening with my husband and the knowledge that I’ll never make it out of here alive. It’s the realization that there’s no hope for me here. That there’s nothing I can do to dig myself out of the dark pit that my life has become.
I had wondered if maybe this man—or whatever he is—was here to take me away, but it’s been months now, and I’m no closer to figuring out who he is or what he wants from me.
If he even truly exists.
After all, a lot of people who hallucinate think that what they’re seeing is real. Why would I be any different? Whatmotive would anyone have to follow me, a depressed, 30-year-old housewife?
Maybe he really is an illusion of my mind, one strange way for my psyche to hold onto hope. A coping mechanism.
