I was keen to find somewhere warm and dry as soon as possible and we
passed by a number of seemingly pleasant cafés, but Amber has her favourite
coffee spots and she naturally assumes that I will follow wherever she leads
like an obedient, caffeine-free sheepdog. Being terribly unfit, keeping pace
with Amber whilst also keeping pace with her conversation was a very demanding
task. I quickly found myself out of breath and each word that I managed to
squeeze into her loud monologue was punctuated by someone stepping in between
us or my desperate attempts to catch my breath. Add the icy rain and cold wind
into the mix and before long I was gasping and wheezing like a cardiac patient.
As we walked the steady incline against the main flow of the crowd, my
attention was lured away from our conversation and towards a man who was
standing in the middle of the street ahead of us. From what I recall there was nothing
exceptional about him; he looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties and
at first his greasy hair and ruddy complexion suggested that he was a tramp, but
under closer inspection I noticed that he was too well dressed to be a tramp.
Equally, he was too well dressed to be a typical Saturday shopper. He wore an
expensive-looking business suit and he had a professional demeanour about him, but
his dishevelled appearance was far too scruffy for a local businessman out on
his lunch break. However it was not his appearance that drew my eye to him but
rather his unmoving stance in the middle of the street. He stood absolutely
still in the centre of the main thoroughfare and shoppers poured from either
side of him like a fast stream spilling around a pebble, all seemingly
oblivious to his presence and appearing to avoid bumping into him purely by
chance.
As I glanced towards the man I was surprised to discover that he was
staring straight back at me. Eye contact with a stranger in the centre of town
is a very rare occurrence; it is not the friendliest of places and strangers
who approach you are invariably selling something or trying their luck at
squeezing some spare change out of you. But there were no advertising hoardings
nearby, he had no magazines in his hand and he was not making any attempt to
strike up a conversation with the members of the public around him. ‘Pervert’,
I thought, ‘standing in the street and watching the women and young girls pass
by’, so I decided to throw a few obvious glares back at him to warn him off and
scold him for his creepy behaviour. But each time our eyes met he seemed unashamed
to have caught my attention and he made no attempt to break eye contact, in
fact I noticed that a large grin was creeping across his face in response. And
then, as I considered the reason for why he had singled me out from the crowd,
I realised that it was not a voyeuristic stare but a knowing grin. A smile of
recognition. I wondered whether I knew him, or at least whether he knew me. Is
he a family friend or someone whose name I cannot place? On any account, should
I acknowledge him and politely smile back?
Then, as I pondered my response to the stranger, I noticed that his
countenance and posture was starting to shift. With every fleeting glimpse that
I took of him, I saw that his entire body was beginning to distort; his face
reddened and the lines on his forehead deepened, squeezing every knotted vein
to the surface of his skin. His hands tightened into fists at his side, his
shoulders stiffened and his back began to bend as though his spine was being
twisted, causing him to hunch forward most unnaturally. Although transfixed by
the rapid disfigurement of his face and body, in my peripheral vision I was surprised
by the apparent indifference of the bustling shoppers to his physical transformation.
Why did they not acknowledge that he was there? Could they not see him? And
then, to my horror, as he unashamedly held my gaze, I watched the man’s smile
widen until his perverse grin became an almost maniacal sneer and I swear –
although I feel foolish admitting to it – that I spotted a row of sharp,
needle-like teeth protruding from between his thin, grey lips.
My face flushed and every hair on my body bristled as adrenalin began to
pound through me. Something wasn’t right about him. He felt out-of-place. I
felt out-of-place. I was instantly flustered and looked down at my feet to
avoid his gaze, but all the while I could feel his stare burning into me,
taunting me and daring me to look at him. The roar of the crowds whirled like a
maelstrom around me causing my head to spin and my chest to tighten and as I
continued to walk my legs grew heavier and heavier with every step that I took
towards him. For a brief second I thought that I would pass out, so I turned to
Amber for help but it was as though a veil had been drawn between us. She was deeply
embroiled in a conversation with herself and when I tried to speak her name the
words caught in my throat.
As I came within a few feet of the man I was gripped by the paralyzing
fear that he would shout something at me or step forward and touch me. What
would he say? What would I do? Realising that I was sinking deeper and deeper
into a mire of panic and confusion, I made a desperate and concerted effort to
compose myself and in a rare moment of bravery I decided to confront the man directly
as we passed each other by. Ice cold adrenaline coursed through every vein in
my body as I lifted my head and our eyes met once again, only this time he was almost
within touching distance and I could see every line on his face, every drop of
sweat on his brow and the dark, hollow pupils of his eyes. And then, as we held
each other’s stare, I understood the connection between us.
He did not want to touch me or speak to me.
He just wanted me to see him.
The roar of the crowd faded away into a dull and distant hum, the
bustling activity that was taking place around me seemed to slow and grind to a
halt and everything in my peripheral vision melted away into a blurry haze as
my focus was entirely absorbed by the stranger. It was the most bizarre
experience, but I was not afraid. Although I found the stranger’s appearance to
be extremely unsettling, there was something extraordinary about him that fascinated
me and even now I recall that, for the few seconds that I shared in his intimate
presence, I really felt as though I had glimpsed through the shallow emptiness
of my immediate surroundings and into the realm of the supernatural. And yes, I
confess that it was a strangely peaceful and comforting experience.
Flustered by the close physical proximity between us, I broke eye
contact with the man, held my chin down tightly against my chest and stared
intently at my feet as I hurried past him and pushed Amber into the nearest
café. She barked something at me for my clumsiness and once inside I feigned
interest in the sandwich menu near the door, but I was compelled to look back
out onto the street to see whether the stranger was still there. Unable to resist
the temptation, I stepped into the café window and searched up and down the street,
but he was nowhere to be seen.
I was haunted by the encounter throughout the remainder of the day and I
was preoccupied during the romantic meal that Alex had arranged for us later that
evening. Sleeping was an impossible task that night and I lay awake, obsessively
replaying the incident over and over again and wondering who the person was and
why he had singled me out from the crowd. Even now the face of the man is so fresh
in my memory that it continues to disturb me.
