I was standing beside my kitchen sink when I saw his reflection. His face loomed large in my spoon as I ate oatmeal with raisins. The dull concave surface flipped and warped our images, making our faces broad and grotesque. My image was upside down and above. His image was right side up and below.
He was reaching up to touch me. A fierce wind I could not feel or hear blew his long black hair away from his pale face. For a moment, our eyes met in the blurry reflection.
Then he vanished.
Panic settled around me as I forced myself to turn and face whoever had entered my apartment. No one was there.
I lunged for my purse and the pepper spray hidden inside. Desperately searching through the chaos that is my purse grew frustrating, so I gave up and dumped everything on the floor. I grabbed the pepper spray before it rolled under the oven and prepared myself too fight.
But no one attacked me. The figure had left.
Moving from my spot next to the kitchen counter took some time. Then the logical part of my brain began working as the panic subsided.
I walked forward into my apartment with the pepper spray raised.
The spoon’s bowl flipped our images vertically. If the man I had seen was real, he would have stood on my ceiling.
I looked to the ceiling for some sign that a man had been standing on it but found none.
A wind I had not felt or heard blew back the man’s dark hair. Where did the wind come from? I don’t own a fan.
And finally, the man could not have escaped the confines of my apartment so suddenly. Where would he go? I only have one bedroom.
I checked the bathroom to be sure. Nothing.
Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. Maybe I ate a bad raisin.
For two months, the figure in my spoon never crossed my mind. I forgot about the man completely. It was as if he was a dream lost in the realm of sleep.
I was in public the next time I saw him.
Stacy, a friend from work, was helping me buy makeup. We laughed as we gossiped about our horrible bosses at the coffee shop. I guffawed as she mimicked the nasal twang of our day manager.
“oops, did I mess up your time card again? Well, we can’t have anyone working over 30 hours because that would make you full-time, and then we would have to offer you benefits. By the way, I need you to come in on your day off and work two hours because we’re short-staffed.” Stacy said with a pout.
I’ll admit it was sad, desperate laughter, but it was nice to laugh just the same.
Then I saw him for just a moment.
Everything came back. The minutiae of the first time I saw the man flooded my mind. The oatmeal. The wind. Our eyes meeting for that one moment. His disappearance. It all came back, and I was terrified.
My mind whirled as I tried to locate him among the department store crowd. I scanned the room quickly until an overwhelming feeling of menace gripped me. Then almost without thinking, my head pivoted towards an oversized makeup mirror.
The mirror at the counter was much larger than a regular makeup mirror. The purpose of the mirror was to magnify your flaws, so eager salesclerks could upsell the foundation creams. As I stared into the mirror’s curved depths, I realized the images in the mirror were flipped like the spoon when I had seen the man the first time.
My reflection was upside down and above. The man’s reflection was right side up and below.
Behind my image, I saw his form leaning into a gale of wind. Struggling to move forward one small step at a time. His image was sharper and easier to see, making him all the more real.
His whole body was visible in the mirror. He stood on the air. Nothing supported his weight, but he struggled forward as if walking up a hill during a hurricane. Occasionally the wind would buffet the man, and he would stagger, either being pushed back or falling forward.
I turned around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then my eyes crept back to the mirror. I watched in horror as he struggled forward, coming ever closer.
Finally, I forced myself to take a long look at him.
The man is tall and gaunt. His hair is long, dark, and matted. His skin is opaque alabaster with blue spiderwebs of veins visible underneath. His mouth is a line with dry, cracking lips pressed firmly together.
He wears a long coat, a tie, scuffed black oxfords, gray slacks, a black belt, and a white dress shirt that has yellowed and stained. He is scruffy and worn.
Evidence of fighting the wind is most prevalent on his dark gray long coat and tie. Those garments are frayed at the edges. They whip and snap like twisted banners behind an airplane.
As I study him, I sense determination and hunger. So much hunger. A sea of need and want waiting to be filled.
I wanted him to disappear. I silently commanded it to happen. Remembering his eyes locking with mine and his sudden disappearance, I willed him to look into my eyes.
As I stared at him, the wind I could not feel or hear forced him back. It was as if my will and the wind were one. Neither of us wanted the man in this place. We pushed against him, and he was flung back.
He raised his dark eyes to mine, and disgust twisted his narrow patrician features. Then he was gone.
I heard my name.
“Abby. Abby, are you okay?”
“Paper, I need paper,” I told Stacy. And then frantically searched my chaos purse for something to write with.
Everything I could remember. I wrote it all down. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that the memory didn’t fade away.
I remember.
And that is why I carry a soup spoon in my pocket.
I bought a 12-piece set of stainless-steel soup spoons.
The spoons have a high mirror finish.
I polish the spoons.
I also keep one in my purse.
If I feel uneasy, I pull out a spoon and check behind me. If I feel watched, I pull out a spoon. If it’s slow at the coffee shop, I pull out a spoon because that man always returns.
No matter how many times I’ve pushed him away, and it’s been quite a few, he returns. He plods forward one step at a time with a fierce determination I’ve never witnessed before. He is relentless in pursuing me, and I don’t know why.
So, I must be relentless.
Relentless and diligent with my spoons.