Lurking

I keep seeing something in the dark. Something tall, and thin, that has arms at long they almost touch the ground. It usually walks, slowly, gingerly stepping over houses, lurching across the barren orchards and fields. Sometimes it drops to all fours, its head bent down to the ground like it's following the scent of prey. 

I don't think it has eyes. 

I don't think it needs them. 

No one else seems to have seen it, and I'm not stupid enough to bring it up. If I have lost my mind, why is it only this one thing? I can still do my boring office job, and my friends and family haven't said anything, other than some gentle teasing when I want to get home early; that I'm getting too old. 

I tried driving away, once. After hours of driving, just before dawn, there it was, loping towards me from the opposite direction. I broke down and wept. Finally I turned around and went home. 

What's been nagging me lately is why it has never done anything to me. It lurks, it stalks, it won't leave me alone, but it only ever watches. 

What if it's keeping something away? Protecting me from something even more horrifying. Or maybe I'm just bait, and it's waiting for something else. 

I'm going to find out. I'll go out into the fields tonight, alone, unarmed, and I'll wait. 

This torment demands an ending. 

THE END

Binary Blues

I had a quarter-tank of gas, more than enough to get me through the week. The night was cooler than it had been in weeks; finally felt a little like October. I sighed. I didn't want to get gas now, and I sure as hell won't want to get gas later. When nothing you do matters, then you are truly free. I grabbed my keys and put on my lobster sandals. 

The mutts wanted to come along, so I let them in the backseat of the car and rolled down the windows. The autoplay on the stereo connected to my phone and started playing dark jazz; the kind of music that sounds like it's punching you in the gut while it smothers you with a pillow. 

I don't remember selecting that music. 

The intersection is down to one lane, but it's late and not busy. In the orange streetlights, I see a man and a woman sitting on the sidewalk and chatting, their bags scattered around them. They seem resigned but not unhappy. It's dark and I can't be sure. There is a god of pain, I think, and they must have eluded him today. I can't be sure. It's late and dark. 

I remember the terror of uncertainty. I think I liked it. 

I tell myself that now, but I can't be sure. Whatever it is I'm doing now feels like mimicry. A pantomime of solitude. 

Moving slowly, like a shark, just fast enough to live, but not fast enough to get anywhere.

The gas station attendant is nowhere to be seen. I use the self-fill station. As I press the buttons on the keypad, it beeps at me and adds zeros and ones and zeros and ones in a repeating pattern. Some binary message, probably. But I don't know binary, so I ignore it. 

My tank is full, and my car says I can now go 500 miles, if I drive conservatively. I feel a little better.