This The Night I Almost Died

It is night and I have been drinking. Not so much that I would call myself drunk, but definitely tipsy. Walking straight is no problem, although I occasionally trip over some small imperfection of the pavement, one I would most likely spot if I were fully sober and if it were day.

The date is late October, that being not much of a date, just a mere setting to indicate what the weather is and what the atmosphere of the leaf-covered, windy street is. As I walk I see no decorations for the upcoming holiday, but I do sense a strange presence of spirits living inside houses that stand along each side of the road, crumbling under the weight of their age.

A sound startles me suddenly and I stop to look around, half afraid, half ashamed of my fright. I see no one behind me, not a soul anywhere before me, and not a living thing in the windows of these Houses of Usher that surround me. To shake off the unsettling feeling of being watched, I check the time and resume walking in a faster pace.

Many steps away from where I encountered the noise, maybe halfway down the street, a silhouette becomes visible on the horizon. At first, it is nothing more than a black spot moving slowly in the dim light of the few street lamps still working in this godforsaken part of town. But as we walk towards each other, the spot turns into a dark figure, which now steps into a cone of yellow light that reveals the features of a mustached man in his fifties, wearing a dark coat, black bots, gloves, and a hat.

I tell myself not to panic, but panic I do as only a few steps are now the distance between us. So sudden was the appearance of this man, only a few minutes it took before he was before me, that I did not have time to think about who he was and what were the dangers of walking past him. Now, when it is too late, when our close encounter is inevitable, my mind is flooded with unease and with ideas that give me a cold sweat.

On this night of nights, on a street covered in darkness that is only rarely penetrated by a dying light, I become sure that this man will stop me to mug me or even to kill me with a knife already covered in the blood of a madman’s innocent victim. Three steps are now the distance between us, not more than two or three meters before our paths cross.

Oh ghosts of abandoned houses! You who killed yourselves long ago to escape the unbearable life of the poor, you who died peacefully in your beds at night not knowing it was your last night before the Judgement comes, you nocturnal creatures invisible to the living, please accept me as one of your own, for I am about to die by the hand of man suspicious in looks and behavior.

I look at him, ready to be stabbed, and he looks at me and tips his hat to bid me a good evening. That is our whole encounter. He is now walking behind me, on his way to wherever he is headed, and so am I, making the distance between us ever so greater with each step.

Maybe I have, after all, been drinking more than I thought.