Come Closer

My three kids stood before me with their faces soiled with tear streaks, begging me to forgive them, and honestly, these kids were the absolute worst. How it all started was that I had taken these three foolish children to the mall and spent a whole lot of money on them, only for them to repay me by behaving like complete idiots on our way out. Heidi was twenty, the second was seventeen, and the youngest was fourteen, yet somehow they had decided that the perfect way to end an expensive family outing was by standing around the wine bar, giggling like little children who had never been taught how to behave in public. Before I could even figure out what they were laughing about, one of them knocked over an expensive wine, and of course, I had to pay for it. I stood there staring at the bill, wondering how three perfectly grown children could collectively possess so little sense. That was it. I was done. I didn't want to hear another apology, another excuse, or another giggle for the rest of the night.

A little later, I changed into my sweatpants and a shirt, grabbed a face cap, slipped my feet into my slippers, and walked outside with the kind of anger that made me feel as though the entire world had personally offended me. The moment the door shut behind me, the silence of the street greeted me. It was almost unnaturally quiet, with only the occasional streetlight illuminating small patches of the road. I took a deep breath and started walking, letting the cool night air settle against my face. Earlier that day, I had taken a walk with Heidi, and the two of us had wandered farther down the street until we came across an old-looking house that seemed almost abandoned. There was something strange about it, something that immediately caught my attention. I had jokingly decided that if those three idiots wanted to frighten me tonight, I would give them something to be frightened about instead. I was going to walk to that house and give them a little scare. As I walked, I couldn't help but laugh evilly inside my head. Muhahahah. Maybe I was dramatic, but after the amount of money they had made me waste, I deserved at least one tiny moment of revenge.

I continued along the quiet road, my slippers making soft sounds against the pavement as I moved farther from the house. The night seemed different now. During the day, everything had looked ordinary, almost peaceful, but under the darkness, every tree and every shadow seemed to possess its own secret. Eventually, I reached the place where Heidi and I had stopped earlier. There was a long pavement surrounded by flowers, and I remembered sitting there with her while we talked. At the time, I had even considered taking some of the flowers home so I could plant them, but I had decided I would come back later. Now that I was standing there again, though, I wasn't thinking about flowers or planting anything. My anger had faded into something heavier, and I suddenly felt too sad to care. Still, I walked toward the pavement, intending to sit in the same place where Heidi and I had sat earlier.

I was just about to lower myself onto the pavement when a deep male voice suddenly came from somewhere in the shadows. “Don't sit there!” The warning came so quickly and so forcefully that I jumped back. “What?” I asked, staring into the darkness. I couldn't see anyone. There was only a vague shape somewhere beyond the faint reach of the streetlight. The man spoke again, his voice low and strangely serious. “It's a grave.” My stomach dropped. A grave? I looked down at the place where I had been about to sit, then stared around me as my mind began putting together pieces I hadn't noticed earlier. Wait. I had sat here before. With Heidi. We had been sitting right there, talking, and I suddenly remembered myself reaching toward one of the plants because I had wanted to pull it out and take it home. Had I really been sitting on someone's grave without knowing it?

I slowly stepped backward, suddenly uncomfortable with the ground beneath my slippers. The man told me I could sit somewhere else, pointing toward another spot, although I could barely see him. His voice seemed to come from somewhere just beyond the shadows. For some reason, I didn't want to follow his suggestion. Maybe it was stubbornness, maybe curiosity, or maybe I simply didn't want to admit that his warning had frightened me. Instead, I moved toward a small patch of deeper shadow and stood there, keeping a little distance between us. The silence returned. I could hear nothing but the faint sounds of the night, and for several seconds, neither of us spoke. I tried to make out his face, but the darkness swallowed most of his features. I could see only the vague outline of his body and the tiny glowing end of the cigarette in his hand.

We stood there in silence for what felt much longer than it probably was. I kept trying to see his face, shifting slightly whenever the light changed, but every time I thought I might finally make him out, the shadows seemed to hide him again. There was something unsettling about the way he stood there, completely still, as though he had been waiting in that exact spot for someone to come along. Eventually, unable to tolerate the silence anymore, I spoke. “Are you okay?” The question sounded almost ridiculous the moment it left my mouth. Why would I ask a strange man standing alone in the shadows beside a grave if he was okay? But instead of laughing or ignoring me, he answered immediately. “No.” His deep voice carried through the darkness, calm but heavy, and somehow that single word made the atmosphere feel even stranger.

I glanced at the cigarette between his fingers, watching the small orange light glow whenever he took a drag. “Why aren't you okay?” I asked, although a part of me was already wishing I hadn't started the conversation. He didn't answer immediately. He simply stood there, staring somewhere beyond me, the cigarette smoke disappearing slowly into the cold night air. I took another careful look at him. He was still mostly hidden, but now I could make out more of his outline. He seemed tall, though I couldn't tell if it was because of the shadows, and there was something about his posture that made him appear exhausted. He took another drag from his cigarette and then looked in my direction. “Come closer,” he said in that same deep voice.

I hesitated. Every sensible thought in my head told me that walking closer to a strange man standing beside a grave in the middle of the night was probably the exact opposite of a good idea. Yet curiosity had always been one of my worst qualities. I took two slow steps toward him, enough to bring myself slightly into the light, and then stopped. The streetlight fell across part of his figure, but his face was still difficult to see clearly. I could feel my heartbeat picking up as I stared at him, wondering who he was and what he was doing there at that hour. He didn't move. He simply looked at me through the darkness, cigarette still burning between his fingers. Then, after another long silence, he finally spoke again, and something in the way he said it made the hairs on my arms rise. “You really shouldn't be here.”

For a moment, I couldn't speak. The words hung between us while the night seemed to grow quieter around us. I looked behind me, toward the road I had walked down, suddenly aware of just how far I had come from home and how completely alone we were. Then I looked back at the man. “Why?” I asked. He lowered the cigarette from his mouth, and the tiny ember glowed brightly in the darkness before fading again. His face remained almost impossible to read. He took one slow step forward, and I instinctively stepped back. My mind immediately returned to the grave, to the place where Heidi and I had sat earlier, to the flowers I had nearly pulled from the ground, and to the strange feeling I had experienced when I first saw that old house. Whatever this man knew, I suddenly had the frightening feeling that my little nighttime walk had led me somewhere I was never supposed to be.