Chapter 1
I always thought those stories of people remembering meaningless things upon experiencing near death were bizarre. And now, in front of him, I maintain my position.
Because it’s nothing meaningless, it’s not the mundane that comes up to mind, but rather it feels like finding the shape of something you quite didn’t know what it was, like even the pieces I thought were such a foggy memory that would never come back to me were finally fitting.
For a terrifying moment it all made sense.
My eyes are tearing up as I try to not even blink, afraid of what he might do. I’m not sure how to put it into words but something about him felt utterly threatening, I would even call it “evil”.
When we were growing up my little brother would always talk about this figure that lived in his room, because we wouldn’t ever see him when he called us we called him “The Man That Isn’t There”.
I wonder how was I ever able to forget, at the beginning for him, it was nightmare fuel, he would scream in the middle of the night saying he was watching him.
After a while he got desensitized, or as much as a kid can get. He said the man would whisper to him in a way it was really hard to understand, it made his ears ring, and it made his eyes blurry, but he always said he wouldn’t hurt him because he’s not someone who hurts children, so that tranquilized him, at least in the daylight.
Until one day my brother disappeared.
We searched for days, called the cops and all. The neighbors looked too. How does a five-year-old disappear without a trace with everyone at home with him?
It was over a week after when we found him.
Not a spec of dirt in his clothes, not a scratch over his skin.
I had never seen my parents cry so much, I think I haven’t seen them like that ever again.
He was really startled at the display of emotion, seeing the patrols in front of our house.
He said he was only gone for a few minutes because we wanted to say goodbye, nothing to worry about.
When we asked who he wanted to say goodbye to he said “The man that isn’t there!”. I remember we looked at each other wondering how we could ever explain this to authorities, even to family members and neighbors.
“He said he was leaving for a while, so I wanted to say goodbye, he said he will be back for dinner though”.
Without being able to enjoy the relief, we were questioned immediately. Over the weeks they closed the case and no further questions were asked, our house was registered, the nearby areas too, I even remember a social worker coming over to see we weren’t hiding anything shady.
I guess as we both became older we started thinking about it less and less, our parents didn’t like when the subject came up in family reunions and over time it felt more and more like something foreign, like something that didn’t belong in our house or in our lives.
I could almost hear my brother’s voice ringing in my ears. “He said he will be back for dinner though”.
A few weeks ago dad passed away.
He wasn’t sick or anything, it took us by surprise, really.
After a little talking as a family my brother and I decided we would look for a new place for mom, we were taking turns between taking care of her and coming to the house to clean and save her stuff in boxes. We wanted her to say goodbye to dad’s clothes and so but she felt like she couldn’t, she instructed us to save everything that was hers and take all of his stuff to a charity.
So I was there today, I couldn’t blame mom for being too tired for goodbyes as I emptied closets and put away boxes full of memories.
It was then, when I got to my brother’s room now transformed in a crafts’ room that I saw him, the man that wasn’t supposed to be there.
As soon as I saw him I felt that paralyzing sensation my brother tried to describe so many times with the vocabulary his child brain allowed him to put together.
Even though I looked at this figure, dark and dense, I felt like I was seeing something I wasn’t meant to see, like his figure was not something my eyes were meant to appreciate, like I shouldn’t be able to look at it or, maybe like it was forbidden.
I, too, felt my ears hurt, like they were going numb, and my eyes were getting blurry, I blinked to try to ease the pain, but as I did this figure, that before had stayed still like a statue, moved so much closer to me.
At that moment I felt a new kind of fear, a fear that felt so irrational, so surreal.
I guess I tricked myself into not believing that knowing he wouldn’t hurt children calmed me too.
And I guess he didn’t lie to my brother about that, although now the words had taken a new meaning.
It would be such bad luck, but I guess he really did come back for dinner.
