HALF A MAN
written by: Roy Eisenstein
@eyezenmedia
It was late and I couldn’t sleep. I was just a kid and the wind outside in the darkness made me anxious.
I don’t know, I just couldn’t sleep. So I sat there looking out the window in my room at the leaves blowing around on the dark street below. I could see the distorted rectangle of the light from my window with my shadow in it stretching across the front lawn as the light from my ceiling pushed out into the yard.
The next day was school and I had a report due that I hadn’t done and I was nervous about that too. I was just sitting there going over my alibis when I thought I saw someone outside on the grass. Well, not really someone, but half of someone. I mean it looked like some guy stepped into the light cast from my window and the light lit the half of his body and face and the rest of him I couldn’t see at all. I tried to get a better look but he was gone. What the heck was that all about?
I felt that queazy feeling you get when you’re not sure if you should trust your senses or not. I started to look around the yard as best as I could from upstairs and with the darkness and all, but I couldn’t see a thing. Just then it happened again. I could see the full right side of this guy as it slid into the box of light all warped on the ground.
His face was drawn and pale and darkness where his right eye should’ve been. I looked for the rest of him, his left side, but it was too damn dark, and then before I could get back to his face he was gone. I didn’t see where he went, he was just gone. I nearly freaked. I looked at Mason, my dog, but he was fast asleep on my bed like nothing happened.
I jumped up and grabbed a flashlight and a baseball bat and headed down the stairs to the front door. Mason woke up and followed me. My folks were asleep and I opened the front door as quietly as I could. The wind was going ape outside and whipped my hair in my face and I couldn’t see or hear much of anything.
Mason ran straight out and pissed on the tree like nothing was going on. I tried to scan the yard and the cars out on the street, but I couldn’t see much with my little flashlight, and except for the spot lit by the light coming from my room, the yard was pitch black. So I called Mason back in and we both went back up to my room.
I felt really nervous and decided I’d better go to bed. Get under the covers where it was safe. But I couldn’t help it, I had to look out the window one more time before I hit the lights, and there he was again. I didn’t recognize him, not by just seeing half his face, but he looked a little like my father, sort of. Just the right half of him waving his arm and moving his leg in the light and then gone. I snapped off the lights, pulled the blanket over my head, and shook nervously for hours until I fell asleep.
I had lots of freaky dreams all night long, they kept waking me but I wouldn’t turn on the lights and then Mom woke me and said to get dressed and come down to eat before she drove me to school. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I wanted to just stay home with Mason and look around the house for tracks or something. I knew I didn’t imagine seeing the guy in the yard the night before.
By the time I got out of the bathroom and downstairs my anxiety over the report I had due was starting to take over my other anxiety.
Dad was about to leave just as I made it groggily to the kitchen table. Seeing his face made me think of the man in the yard last night. Could Dad have been out there doing something strange? It didn’t exactly look like him, but, besides, what could he have been doing and why didn’t I see him when I went out there?
The phone rang and he got it. His face went pale as he listened to the person on the other end. He said a few things back in a strange, low voice and then hung up. Mom asked him what was wrong and he said that it was his sister on the phone, and his brother Alex up in Alaska, died. He was working on the pipeline and yesterday a piece of heavy equipment went into a ditch and toppled on him crushing his left side. Split him in half.
I never made it to school that day.
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