No one paid a thought to the man with no skin.
I’ve been sitting in the middle of this busy square for an hour, and not a single soul has given any indication that they see this anatomical abomination. Let me take a step back:
My name’s Paul, and I’m a writer. A failing writer, but a writer nonetheless. I haven’t been able to write anything for months, and so I decided to turn back to an old habit: People Watching. I remember my old Creative Writing Professor mentioning that observing people and trying to create stories about them could help jumpstart the creative flow. So, last week I grabbed a notebook and headed to a random street corner. Not much happened. I spent the rest of that week going from corner to corner until I found this spot outside a business skyscraper.
Rush hour was a perfect time, so I got there a little early and waited. It started slow enough: a businesswoman in a maternity blouse waddled out and made her way to a hatchback on the large side and drove off; nothing too interesting there. Ten minutes later, a Hispanic man in a navy tracksuit swaggered past me wearing one of those Bluetooth earpieces that were so popular in the mid-2000s. He was saying something in a language that wasn’t Spanish, and the tone sounded very sarcastic. “Okay, that’s interesting enough.” I thought to myself as I began jotting down random thoughts about him. I paused to look up and find another person to make a character, and that’s when I noticed him.
I don’t know when he showed up; If he walked or just apparated, but across the street was a man with no skin.
At first, I thought it was a terrifyingly intricate costume. The curves of the musculature, the stringy veins, and bulging joint tissue all reminded me of an Anatomy and Physiology model. That theory was dashed once it opened its mouth. Two rows of bleach-white teeth separated allowing an impossibly long tongue to snake out and plop onto the dirty concrete.
I looked around both sides of the street both curious and concerned: curious if anyone else could see him, and concerned for myself when I realized no one else could. The long appendage twitched twice before a bus blew past obscuring my view. Once the leviathan of public transportation finishes its pass, which only took a few seconds, the figure was gone. Everyone continued about their day not once stopping to consider an anatomical impossibility that had been there one second and gone the next. I wrote a quick note about the mysterious figure and quickly made my way home.
The impossible - and frankly implausible - sight continued to stroke my curiosity and filled me with intriguing dreams that night. Dreams of anatomical figurines marching through some stock broker’s office in jerky mechanical movements; each flex of muscle accompanied by a rasping scream as they file through the office stopping to lick each regular worker in their face. I woke up exhausted the next morning.
I wasn’t in my bed. I was at my desk with a partially written manuscript beneath my head. Did I write in my sleep?
This was odd, even with the neurotic things I did in my college years. I rubbed my eyes, made a pot of coffee, and looked at this mysterious manuscript. It was full of incoherent ramblings about the universe’s edge, and time escaping, and ended with the mention of a pharaoh from before this world’s existence…
Whatever that means. I shake off the weirdness and set the manuscript aside. I thought it was interesting enough to deal with later. After eating breakfast, I decided to head back to the area where I saw the figure. There wasn’t anything left behind on the sidewalk; no dripping, no blood, not even a strange footprint. I was about ready to just chock it and the manuscript up to an unusually high burst of creativity and neuroses when I saw it again. It was about ten feet away from me, but I could see its eyes: empty sclera staring seemingly aimless, but as its mouth slowly opened and that impossible tongue lolled out; I could tell there was something it was looking for.
The tongue twitched on the ground before slowly lifting off the ground and moving in a way that reminded me of a Moray Eel. The sound of a car alarm being set snatches my attention from the abomination in front of me. It’s the pregnant woman from yesterday. Judging by the easily visible bump in her oversized blouse I’d say she was about six months in. She rushes by in an uncomfortable shuffle completely ignorant of the thing in front of me.
CRACK
The sound snaps my attention back to the strange figure.
Its head has turned to completely face the building despite its torso facing me still. The tongue bisects at the end revealing exaggerated canines. The long extremity darts directly for the woman. Unconsciously, I shout a warning to the woman.
“Watch out!” I scream.
She ducks her head in an awkward dodge and looks around. As she investigates the tongue appears to pierce through her back, but there’s no blood; no viscera, no gore; not even a wince of pain from the woman as the tongue snaps back to the abomination.
The woman’s eyes meet mine, and she scoffs before flipping me off and entering the building. I look back at the thing, but it’s completely gone; once again missing without a single trace of its existence. Shakily, I cross the street and drop onto the bench I had sat on yesterday trying to process my possible insanity.
Ten minutes later, an ambulance screeches to a halt across the street. Paramedics rush in, and minutes later they come out with the pregnant woman on a stretcher. Blood covers her mouth, chin, and skin-tone stockings.
Shaken by the result I rush over to the building, burst into the lobby, and inquire as to what happened.
The woman behind the counter can’t seem to pull her tear-filled eyes from a wide puddle of blood sitting just outside one of the elevators…
The woman miscarried.
I don’t know exactly how long it took me to get home. The trip between the building, and my home is a blur. I don’t eat that night; my appetite was completely vacant.
I glance at the unfinished manuscript on my desk; I think of all its allusions to bulls made of bronze and sacrifices that “will leave the birthers to do naught but weep.” I think of what I saw just hours earlier. An itch covers my hand as the unconscious urge to continue writing battles for supremacy in my mind- my soul.
I feel beyond accomplished and relieved as I put it through the shredder. I go to bed that night prepared for any number of nightmares about that creature or the manuscript, but my sleep is dreamless. Hellishly so.
I woke up just a few minutes ago, and I wish I hadn’t.
Outside my second-story window is that thing. As motionless as it would be standing on solid ground not hovering outside a second-story window. It’s watching me with those pure white eyes; focused on my form watching me for something. It tilts its head to the side like some predatory animal, but there’s something different about it…
It has skin.
It looks like me. Almost a perfect copy with the exception that there isn’t a single follicle of hair on its smooth body.
I’m typing this out in hopes that if I survive this night someone knows what it is.
Its tongue is tapping on my window; its teeth scraping against the window.
Please Help