I grew angry with myself for thinking that something supernatural had been watching me. I needed to get some fresh air; I was feeling dizzy. My Italian leather shoes clacked across the wooden floors as I quickly stomped out of the restaurant, cursing the entire staff for the disgustingly piggish and unkept decor.
From that day forward, the unsettled feeling never left me. I felt as if I could still feel those giant black saucers penetrating my thoughts. I was being followed. I was sure of it.
***
Sleepless nights spent tossing and turning were intensified after The Meeting. Waking up in the middle of a cold, crisp December night, I walked to the nearby park. Abandoned as it always is at 3AM, it gave off a certain eerie feeling which never failed to please me. I know, I know, it’s a bit messed up to admit something like that…but I always felt at home in the gloom. I sat alone on a park bench, gazing appreciatively at the full moon that beamed in the sky. Smoke danced along the damp, misty grass, and within it, shadows loomed. I peered intensely at one of these misshaped shadows--it appeared to be moving closer and closer. As it emerged out of the smoke, I found myself paralyzed in my terror--it was The Man. The Man’s inky, nebulous eyes glared at me from under his bowler hat, and I felt myself growing weak. Underneath the rim of that hat I saw acuity and clever perception mingled with a cunning determination to push insanity to its very boundaries. Staring into the fathomless abyss, I wondered what it was that I had done to deserve this. In his eyes, I saw… things too excruciating to describe… It was then that I realized that the man didn’t have a mouth--instead, his lips were made out of thin trails of blood which dripped down his chin and splattered to the murky ground. For some reason, this terrified me. His mouth never failed to make me faint.
***
Laying at home in bed the next night, I questioned my sanity. What was going on? I keep having these hallucinations…
I dozed off, and when I woke up again, the clock read 2AM. I was cursed with an ominous feeling. Something is wrong. I felt that I was being patrolled, and watched, and followed. I grimaced--was this another illusion? Was I seeing things? Maybe I should some sort of doctor…An eye doctor? Or would I go straight to the asylum for this one? I was terribly paranoid. I was out of my mind. My hands started to tremble. I began to quiver in bed. My body was out of control--I couldn’t breathe, and my muscles were spasming. It felt as if someone had just put a huge weight upon my shoulders, and I couldn’t lift it off. I needed help. Panicked, I leaped out of bed and paced back and forth across the floor. It’s all okay. It’ll be okay. You’re okay, Buck. You’re just fine. It’s all okay. I whimpered to myself and sank to the floor. I gripped my head between my hands and screamed. Stop! Stop! Please, stop! I can’t take it anymore, I’m going insane! I’m losing my mind! I felt his eyes watching me. They had traced my movement since birth. They were the same eyes that the elementary school teachers had watched me with, the same ones that my first manager glared at me with, the same ones that my own mother… had judged me with…
***