I have always been my own worst enemy. On more occasions than I dare to count, two irrepressible traits of mine have led me to wreck nearly every good thing I've ever managed to have going for me: my low tolerance for boredom and my unshakable propensity for self-destruction in all its most beguiling forms. Both drew me towards my own undoing like a moth to a flame. I reduced my life to chaotic shambles over and over again with nothing more to show for it than fleeting gratification that was swiftly followed by guilt, regret, and a burning shame so overpowering that I felt sickened by it. I became painfully acquainted with the agony of self-loathing until it felt like my only remaining companion; anyone who ever made the mistake of caring about me had given up long ago.
I badly wanted to change, and swore to myself many times that I would. No more, I'd vow. Never again.
All of my promises never amounted to anything, of course. My word was as worthless as the rest of me.
And so I had no one but myself to blame for the fact that I would be entering another year alone, with nothing better to do on the last few cold nights of December than whittle away my time reflecting on everything I'd done wrong. I took my usual seat at the bar and ordered my usual drink; I was out of work once again and running alarmingly low on funds, but I would have gladly spent the last cent left to my name if it meant being distracted—however briefly—from my endless troubles and the storm in my head.
As I drank, I started thinking about everything I typically fought hard to suppress. In a matter of days yet another wasted year would be coming to a close. I thought of my many miseries and missteps and misdeeds, and found myself wondering what my life would be like if I were someone else. I wanted to be the kind of person who possessed enough strength and determination to resist falling back into the familiar arms of defeat, someone who was capable of holding down a job for more than a handful of months and lived in a home that wasn't a crumbling apartment with an eviction notice slapped onto the door, someone who knew when it was time to walk away and—
“Rough night?”
I lifted my head and peered to my right to see a weary-faced man seated on the bar stool beside me, hunched over his drink as if he were shouldering a burdensome despair even heavier than my own. I'd been so absorbed in my melancholic rumination that I suspect I would never have taken notice of him had he not spoken.
The man's appearance was strikingly disheveled, almost appallingly so. He looked as if he'd rolled out of bed and dressed his slovenly, pallid form in dirty clothes gathered from a pile on the floor before walking out the door without so much as glancing at a mirror. He wore a wrinkled pair of black trousers that were in dire need of washing and a collared shirt that appeared to have once been white but was now a slight shade of yellow and missing more than a few buttons; both garments were baggy and at least a size too big for him. His unkempt hair was the color of wet sand and clung damply to his forehead with sweat despite the night's wintry temperature. A gloomy, fatigued frown was etched into the drooping lines of his sallow mouth. The somber stranger seemed neither inebriated nor ill; his feeble presence struck me as the wounded disposition of a man who had surrendered himself to complete and utter resignation after growing far too weak to combat whatever hardships had taken their obvious toll on him.
“I could ask you the same thing,” I replied thickly, but there was no contempt in my tone. I recognized the man as a kindred spirit despite having only just met him, a fellow wayward soul who sought to drown his sorrows on a restless night just as I had on countless nights before.
The man shrugged noncommittally. It appeared no offense had been taken. “Yes, I suppose you could,” he said tiredly, his voice heavy and dull as he stared down into his drink. “I've certainly seen better nights.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, yes. Better nights, better days. Better years.” Despite his dismal visage, the man spoke with surprising clarity.
“I'm sorry to hear that, my friend.” My compassion was sincere; as pathetic as I considered myself to be, I felt almost fortunate in comparison to the miserable figure sitting beside me.
He acknowledged me with another shrug. We sat in silence for a moment before the stranger spoke again.
“I hate my job,” he stated abruptly. “I absolutely hate it.”
“Ah.” I realized then that he wanted someone to talk to. “Well, I've been there more times than I care to admit. I'm actually between jobs myself. Here's hoping that something better comes along for us both.”
I raised my glass, but the man just scratched at the stubble on his pasty chin.
“That's unlikely,” he replied flatly.
I frowned. “Alright then.”
“Unlikely for me, anyway. Maybe you'll turn things around, but my own problems are hopeless.”
“That bad, huh?”
He gave me a sullen nod. I wasn't sure what to say next. “Is there anything you can do to improve the situation?” I finally offered. It was a clumsy attempt at optimism; cheerful words tasted sour in my mouth.
The woeful stranger shook his bedraggled head. “Doubtful. I believe that ship sailed long ago.”
“Hmm.” I felt foolish for trying to lighten the mood of someone so committed to their own unhappiness. Still, I pressed on. “Well, even if that's true, it doesn't mean you can't still turn things around.”
“Oh, but I'm afraid that's exactly what it means.”
“Come on now. You're still here, aren't you? Your heart's still beating. As long as you're living, you've got the opportunity to change.”
He looked up from his glass to face me. The dark circles under his eyes made it apparent that an unbearably long period had passed since he'd last enjoyed a good night's sleep. I wondered if perhaps the man was unwell after all.
“Listen, I appreciate what you're trying to do,” he said wearily, and I believe he truly meant it. “You seem like a decent person. So please don't take this the wrong way, but your advice would be far better suited for someone who might actually benefit from it.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “I'm sorry if I've offended you,” I replied carefully. “I didn't mean—”
He raised a hand to silence me. “You've done nothing wrong. We're just different people.”
“I guess so. It's just...you seem like someone who maybe isn't so different from me, that's all.”
“What makes you say that?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, you're here, aren't you?”
The stranger said nothing. For an instant I regretted my words, but when he gave no indication that I had upset him I decided to continue.
“I suspect it isn't just your job that you hate. You hate the idea of things going on the same way they have been for God knows how long, but you've become so lost in your own misery that you can't imagine ever finding your way back out again. You hate waking up after getting precious little sleep, and you hate the effort it takes to keep your eyes open when the only thing you want to do is crawl back into bed so you can toss and turn all over again. You hate every second of your existence and you hate every choice you've ever made that's led you to this point. But most of all, you hate yourself so much that you can't even stand to look at your own reflection.”
The man stared at me. A tense, silent moment passed.
“Well,” he said finally, his voice devoid of any anger or bitterness, “I suppose you're not entirely wrong.”
I shrugged again. “Like I said, I don't think we're so different. And take it from somebody who knows: sitting at this bar won't solve any of your problems.”
“And what do you think would?”
“Well, that's up to you to decide. You can try to salvage what you have now, or maybe it'd be better to start a new beginning somewhere else.”
“I don't know. Would you want to start all over again?”
“Sure, why not? I've done it many times before.”
The man turned away from me and returned his gaze to his glass. I considered ordering another drink, but a glance inside my wallet revealed that I barely had enough money to cover my tab. I got up and went to the bar's restroom; when I returned, the man was gone.
A week later, I lost my apartment when I failed to come up with the back rent I owed. With nowhere left to go, I swallowed what little remained of my pride and asked my father for help. Dad took pity on me and let me move in with him on the other side of town, but not without setting some ground rules first: he told me that what I'd done in the past wasn't going to be tolerated this time around, and if I went back to my old ways then I was on my own for good. I agreed and shook his hand. Dad's apartment was a small one-bedroom, which meant that the living room couch also served as my sleeping quarters. He pulled a few strings and got me a job at an office building where he used to work; it didn't pay much, but Dad wasn't charging me rent and the work kept me busy. Slowly but surely, the storm in my head began to dissipate.
All of my problems didn't simply go away, of course. Sometimes I'd lie awake on the couch, staring up at the ceiling as the sound of Dad's snoring drifted down the hallway, and find myself yearning for the chaos I had been mired in for so very long. The temptation to slip back into my former habits threatened to devour me alive. But I held on tightly to my newfound determination, and as the weeks turned into months I eventually started to feel something that resembled optimism.
One night in March I came home later than usual after pulling some extra hours. I showered and carefully navigated my way through the dark living room, doing my best not to wake up Dad, before sinking onto the couch with a tired sigh and picking up my phone. I don't use social media and rarely have any calls to return or texts to respond to, but I've developed the routine of unwinding before bed by catching up on the day's news. As I scrolled through the headlines, a particularly macabre string of words caught my eye.
Nineteen people killed in local nightclub fire; death toll expected to rise.
I pulled up the article and flipped through its accompanying photo gallery. When I got to the final image, I saw something so startling that I nearly dropped my phone.
Among a mournful crowd that had gathered around the burnt remnants of the club stood someone familiar: the morose man I'd met in the bar on that cold December night, now clean-shaven and dressed in an impeccable black suit, his sleek form a far cry from the disarrayed figure I'd encountered months ago. Like the grief-stricken faces surrounding him, the man was openly weeping.
I stared at my phone in disbelief. Seeing the stranger's profound despair in an image of devastation and agony was as unsettling as it was shocking. My eyes remained fixated on the screen as I wrapped my blanket tightly around my shoulders, chilled by the cold wave of sadness washing over me.
When my father trudged drowsily towards the kitchen in the early hours of the morning he found me wide-awake on the couch.
“Everything alright, son? Didn't you work late last night?”
I crossed the room and handed him my phone. “Dad, look.”
Dad wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe and peered down the at the screen, furrowing his brow as he read.
“Oh, that's awful,” Dad said. “Those poor people.”
“You see that guy in the suit? I met him right before I moved here.”
Dad squinted and brought the phone closer to his face. “What guy?”
“The one wearing a black suit. He's the only person who's dressed up.”
“I don't see who you're talking about.”
I took the phone out of my father's grasp and looked at the screen. My eyes widened when I saw that the man was no longer in the photo.
“Are you feeling okay?” Dad's expression had shifted from sluggish and sleepy to a concerned frown.
I tried to swallow the feeling of dread threatening to climb its way up my throat and spill out of my mouth. I didn't understand what was going on, but I also didn't know how to explain it to Dad without making him think that I was losing my mind.
“Yeah, Dad,” I answered in as casual of a tone as I could muster. “I'm fine. I'm just tired and thought I saw somebody that I recognized, that's all.”
I slipped my phone into the pocket of my sweatpants and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile, but Dad still seemed uneasy.
“Why don't you sit down? I'll brew some coffee.”
Dad continued to talk to me as he moved throughout the kitchen, but I was so lost in my own thoughts that I barely heard a word he said. I wanted to believe that I'd been mistaken, that exhaustion and working long hours had caused me to see something that wasn't really there. But I knew that wasn't true even as I tried to convince myself otherwise; I had stared at the photo for what felt like hours, immersed in the grief it exuded, and not once had it changed until the moment my father laid eyes on it.
But how was that possible?
Three weeks later, I read about a pair of local newlyweds who perished when a drunk driver slammed into their car as they drove to the airport for catch a flight for their honeymoon. The article included images of the wreckage; pictured weeping beside the mangled car was the bereaved stranger, his sorrow as poignant as it'd been at the scene of the burned-down nightclub. The following month I saw a photo of him sadly observing a recovery team as they solemnly searched a reservoir for a drowned child's body, and not long after that I saw him again in the background of an image depicting a despondent woman standing on the edge of a bridge as officers tried in vain to talk her down seconds before she leapt to her death.
Each time I showed my father the pictures, the man would disappear from them entirely. I stopped after Dad told me that he had grown alarmed by my recent obsession with morbid events, but as the months have passed by I've continued to see the man from the bar appear in photos of regional tragedies. I don't understand who—or what—he is. I have often wondered if he is some sort of messenger or guide, arriving at scenes of death to assist the departed in whatever comes next, or if perhaps he is drawn towards grief and compelled to appear like a designated mourner attending a funeral. But it has also occurred to me that his role could be something more ominous and grim; perhaps the man I met is an architect of suffering, overcome with remorse as he observes the pain he has been assigned to create, weeping over the knowledge that it will be only a matter of time before he must construct another demise.
December has arrived once again. I have managed to hold onto my job, and living with Dad has proven to be stable and uneventful. But all my hopes for the future are gone; in their place lies the inescapable knowledge that something terrible is about to happen.
Tonight a holiday party was held at my workplace. One of the secretaries brought her instant camera, the kind that prints out photos. I didn't realize she was taking my picture until I saw the white flash. She laughed when she saw my confused expression and assured me that she wouldn't include the photo with the others she'd pinned onto the festively-decorated bulletin board. She handed it to me the instant it developed, then gave me a small smile before making her departure.
And now I've locked myself in one of the empty offices, more terrified than I've ever been before in my life. I don't know what to do. I want nothing more than to go home, but I'm too afraid to leave for fear of what I might encounter. I can't stay hidden in this office. If everyone turns off the lights and locks the doors and leaves me behind, blissfully unaware that I'm still here, then I'll be left alone in the dark—at least, I pray that I'll be alone.
I know I'm only prolonging the inevitable. There's no outrunning whatever it is that awaits me.
You see, when I looked down at the photograph I saw something that made my stomach drop. I had been sitting by myself at one of the small tables set up for the party when the picture was snapped, several feet away from all my socializing coworkers, but the photo revealed that I wasn't alone. Someone horrifyingly familiar was seated in the chair beside me.
This time, the man from the bar wasn't weeping. He appeared serene and at peace, like a tremendous weight had been lifted off of him and placed onto the shoulders of someone else.
It was my face that was wet with tears.
Written by CertainShadows
Content is available under CC BY-SA