Reflected

A man keeps coming to my window to wave at me in the night.

I can barely see him if the bathroom light is on, because all I see is a reflection of the room, and my own silhouette. But, if the black reflection of my body overlaps the dark outline of his, and the two images intersect like some dark Venn diagram- I can see through the glass properly. I can see his smile, and the whites of his eyes. The look on his face... it’s indescribable. The way he stares at me while I scream and reach for the phone, while I struggle under the sheets frantically- it knocks the wind out of me every time. That wet cement smile is so inhuman, so terrifying, I scream every fucking time. If I tried to make that face, to show you what it looks like, well, I couldn’t do it if I tried. I’d come close, and you’d say it was nothing... just a smile. People smile when they’re happy, but not him. That smile. I can count his teeth.

What does he want? He wants to torture me. He’s going to smile and wave and disappear until the night I snap. When I can no longer move to grab the hammer I keep under my pillow, or dial the “9” in 9-1-1 he’s going to open the window and crawl into my bedroom like spilled ink. He’s going to let me feel the cold air on my face and hear the clacking of his knife on my window sill as he cuts through the soft screen. He’ll let me watch in my peripheral vision as he lifts one leg off the astro-turf outside, and places it inside my bedroom.

I’ll hear a squeak- his shoe on the hardwood. A shuffle. The long whisper/scrape of his trench coat following him over the window sill. A click- the light switch in the bathroom. Everything will be dark. I’ll exhale as he inhales, he’ll exhale as I inhale. He’ll speak through his teeth, like a snake in the dark, that lisping cunt. His voice will be the last thing I’ll hear, before his weapon cuts me to sleep, and the dark turns to sparks, and the pain finally stops.

He’ll say “I love you” because it’s all he ever wanted me to hear.