I'm Saw You (Seeing Me).

A story about alternative reality, a being caught in a loop.

Once I got through the front door I was tired, tired and wet. I threw my bag on the floor in frustration - hard enough to hurt this inanimate object - and snaked out of my jacket, which was clinging to my skin, in a strange kind of panic. Then I stripped all my clothes off and found some sweats in my old closet.

Dad hadn't come to pick me up at the train station, like he said he would, and now he wasn't home. I tried calling his name but it was just a habit. One of those things that you do when you're looking for someone. From my vantage point; picking up wet clothes from the floor in the hall, I could see all three rooms of the apartment - including the kitchen. He clearly wasn't home.

This is why I was in a bad mood. I had to walk the hour-long walk to the apartment in the rain, with the strap from the bag digging painfully into my shoulder. My skin felt static and itching. I wanted to peel that off and throw it on the floor as well. This buzzing and pressuring ache at the back of my head doesn't help either. At what age can you stop expecting things from your parents? At twenty-three I seemed to be out of luck.

I searched the apartment for a note or a clue as to where my dad could be found; but that was about as fruitless as calling his name. The fridge is unsurprisingly empty. A crust of cheese, some juice and a few apples is all the lumber provided to start a fire. Damn it. He knew I was coming.

I find a few beers behind the apples in the fridge and take one. The apartment looks the same as it did when I was last here. Books and articles and magazines on paranormal events and UFO sightings stacked high on the dinner table, amid glasses with a brown circle of dried whiskey at the bottom. I turn on the ceiling light and look at a book left open. Something about sacrifice. Who knows. I don't feel like reading it.

On top of a pile of leather bound books at the far corner of the table is something funny looking. I pick it up. It's five sticks tied together with wicker to look like a person. Two for legs, one for torso, and two for arms. He, or she, doesn't have a head. Maybe it isn't a person. 'Damn it' I mumble to myself as I prick myself on something on the twig-person. I see one romantic droplet of blood emerge from my skin. I toss it towards the stack of books on which it was previously resting. It slides off the book and down on the floor. I don't bother to pick it up, but rather take another sip of the beer and turn on the TV.

I light a cigarette on my way to the store. I need to eat something but I'm not feeling very ambitious so it will probably end up being something frozen that can take a semi-appetizing form in the microwave. I take the pedestrian path through the park next to my dad's apartment complex. Evening has fallen over the city and the street-lights illuminate my path. My head hasn't stopped hurting and my skin still feels unusual. It has that slight stinging and warmth to it, just like when you've burnt it in the sun. My clothes - dry, this time - feel uncomfortable and stiff. I have an itching frustration in my spine that makes me want to kick every trashcan I pass. Suddenly I see something strange. I see the outline of a person leave the path and run into some bushes up a head. I stop for a moment. That's odd. Did the person see me? Is it going to attack me as I walk past? Try to rob me or something? It looked like it was limping. Could he or she be hurt? Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Maybe it's just someone needing to pee or chasing a dog or something. It could be drunk teenagers goofing around or a doper thinking I'm a cop. Still, I don't feel totally comfortable as I keep walking. I light another cigarette and give a wide berth - as wide as I can while still remaining on the path - to the spot where I saw the person, or rather the silhouette of it, run. I make a fist around the keys in my pocket, carefully making sure to have a few of them peek out between my fingers, as I get closer. I stare into the darkness where it must have disappeared, and shout, trying to make my voice sound as collected and calm as possible; 'Don't try anything, okay? I'm not in the mood.' I make my weak threat as evasive as possible in case it's just some kids hoping to jump out and scare me. Nothing happens. I rubberneck, making sure that nothing sneaks up on me until I leave the park and come out in the comfort of cars and other people. My knuckles are white from gripping the keys so hard.

I'm tried when I come home from the store. I feel dazed and weary, like I have a fever. I lost my appetite, and this tightening in my chest and stomach even makes me feel sick. I unpack the groceries and take an apple with me to my bedroom. I know I'm not going to eat it, but just bringing it gives me that same emotion as you get when you feel bloated after Christmas and you join the gym. It's the feeling off betting on yourself. Betting on a better you. I peel my clothes off and slip into bed. My skin is sore and throbbing now and my scull feels like it's going to implode. It's only ten o'clock at night. God. I don't want to wake up with the flu tomorrow. I look at the apple on the nightstand. Maybe I should just take one bite. The vitamins inside of it might cure whatever is happening to my body.

I fall asleep.

I feel terrible when I wake up. My head feels heavier than an anvil and my skin inches. I can see that it's dark outside so it must still be the middle of the night. I feel tired - exhausted, even - and try to go back to sleep but nothing comes. I toss and turn but each time I roll over it's as if I'm doing it on a bed of razors. I don't think I've ever been this sick. It doesn't feel like a regular flu or cold or fever. I caught the swine flu when that was going around and I was mighty sick then, but it didn't feel like this. This feels more like what I would imagine heroin withdrawal feels like. My skin is boiling, itching like I was dragged naked through poison ivy. I turn on the light on my nightstand. Maybe I have had an allergic reaction to something. I examine myself in the pale light but see nothing. No redness, no rash, no boils. My muscles ache with each one I tense. Am I dying? Is this what dying feels like? I call out for my dad. Maybe he came home during the night. No answer. When I stand up I have to grab the wall as to not fall over. My leg is killing me. I can't put any weight on it without it feeling like it's going to buckle underneath me. A blood clot or something? That would explain the pain, but not everything else. I look at the clock. It's eight o'clock in the evening. I have to check three times to make sure it doesn't say eight o'clock in the morning. What? How can that be? It must have stopped or something. Only...it was ten when I went to sleep. Did it reverse itself two hours? I jump on one leg out to the dark kitchen and turn on the lights. The clock on the wall of the kitchen says the same; eight o'clock. I try to make sense out of this. How could I possibly have slept for twenty-two hours? I pour myself a glass of water and sit down. Maybe I should go to the doctor. This doesn't feel like a common ailment, but do I really wanna spring for a doctors appointment? Money is tight as it is. I make a deal with myself; if it doesn't feel better by tomorrow morning I'll go to the doctor. Feel better by tomorrow morning? What a joke. That's ten hours away and I feel like death. That deal is a good way to push the immediacy of this situation further down the road.

What makes me feel better when I'm sick? Oranges. A warm shower. Tea. A walk. I make myself a cup of tea. I don't have any oranges and a shower seems like a terrible idea. With the current sensitivity of my skin each drop of water would feel like driving a nail into my muscles. Some tea, a walk and then back to bed. That will probably solve this.

Descending the four flights of stairs that reaches ground level is hell. I have to pendulum my good leg down one step, then grab the bannister tightly and slowly lower the other one. It takes me an estimated twenty minutes to reach the bottom.

The air outside isn't as fresh as I would have hoped it was. I wanted it to be constitutional for my lungs. Like the hike up a mountain. This town always smells like old coffee and fart. It's dark again as I enter the park. I take different route than the one I took last night. I want to avoid people. I feel so embarrassed limping like this. Each step holds the faint promise of being my last. I light a cigarette but it just makes me sick. I better go to the doctor tomorrow no matter what. Maybe it's cancer. Maybe all this damn smoking has caught up to me. 'What are the odds that I would get cancer?' I ask myself with a mocking voice. High, it would seem. I take the pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and throw them into the bush. I walk around with fury in my heart, trying my best to suppress tears of frustration and sadness that roll down my cheeks, when I see someone walking up ahead. I don't want anyone to see me like this. Walking around, crying at night like a lunatic. I scamper as fast as I can off the path into some bushes. Hiding, I think condescendingly, that isn't the weirdest thing ever. I peak through the branches at the person, but he has stopped. Idiot, he saw you. The terror strikes me and my skin bursts into goosebumps, every hair on my body standing erect. I can't catch my breath and I have to cover my wild panting with my hand. I'm losing my mind. I'm losing my damn mind. I start crying incessantly. 'Don't try anything, okay?' I yell at myself from the path, 'I'm not in the mood.'

Author's Note

This story came to me in a dream and I wrote it rather quickly in the morning. All feedback appreciated.

Reviews

[Not here]

I think it is a good idea for a story, and it is very interesting that it came to you in a dream. It's definitely better than anything I could have written in the morning, for sure. Laugh out Loud. But I still think that if you have split it up into paragraphs and some things to make it appear more attractive to the eye, that it would be easier to read. But good story and good luck with all your other tales to write.