"The Feeling That You're Being Followed"

Hey all.

Here's a little story that I've been mulling over in my head for a while. I had three ideas going into writing this: nondescript, simple, and powerful. I'm planning on turning it into a short film for my schools film festival. For this reason, it may not be too terribly mind-blowing since its basically a premise. Nontheless, I'll keep you posted, and enjoy!

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THE FEELING THAT YOU’RE BEING FOLLOWED

He took another sip. What he was attempting to suppress was easy to see. Another. Another, another, and another. The man opened his locket, and two gleaming faces stared at him, motionless and unblinking. A gorgeous, fair haired woman, holding a sweet smiling man close. Her eyes were like the sun. A scene preserved, and a constant reminder.

If you saw him now, the resemblance is nonexistent. As he sat at the bar now, the man was dreary and clad in a black duster. Ragged hair, scruffy beard, a shadow of what he once was. Again he took a sip, but felt only cold glass on his chapped lips. His eyes shot, angrily towards the tender, who said nothing. The barman’s gaze met with the pile of empty shot glasses on the musty bar. The man at the bar’s face morphed into a scowl. An evil, angry, vein-pooping scowl. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The man’s eyes were red and foggy, clogged by drink. “You think you can just deny a paying customer? Huh?”.

He lifted a glass and hurled it at the wall; it shattered into gleaming snow. The beserker’s eyes drilled into the tender’s face. His rage was rising... he was going to come at him...

Ding. The sound radiated through the man like a ripple in a pond. It changed him. The man swiveled, open mouthed and fidgitting. The figure was barely visible in a long trench coat and fedora. It held the door open. Moitionless. Faceless. But the man felt something.

A pulling, a spark. He moved towards the person. What was this force moving him? The figure backed up as he approached. The closer the man got, the more agitated the figure seemed. The man broke into a run. Before the man could see or follow it, the spectre swooped out the bar’s revolving door, and was gone.

The man kept following. He ran outside, felt the icy snow pile on him. His arctic breath dissipated into the winter air as he breathed in and out. He realized he still held the shot glass in his hand. He smashed it to the sidewalk. It shattered into the gleaming snow  Its nothing. He thought. Its not her.

The man twisted his head and looked back at the bar. The barman would soon walk out in pursuit. He had to move. The man walked.

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He trudged down the sidewalk. The man shivered like a dead leaf, and the mucus dripping from his nostrils froze against his scruffy skin. At last,he reached a crosswalk. The man stopped. There. Across the way. He saw the same figure.

It couldn’t be.

The force grasped him.

The man ran across the sidewalk, ignoring the orange hand gleaming on the sign. Horns blared. Cars screeched. The figure disappeared again, and he quickly was thrusted back into reality. He yelled at the cars. In frustration. In hatred.

In unrivaled sadness.

The man twirled around, searching for the person. In vain. Tears in his contempt filled eyes, he ran down the street, in no particular direction. Through the snow he thought he saw the figure slip into a house. The man ran. And ran. And ran.

The man barrelled through the antique door. Photos of children and happy lined the walls. A family sat in their living room and stared at him. The mother sheltered a little girl.

She had eyes like the sun.

The father was about to ask the man what he was doing, and approached with an outreached hand. The man felt anger and loathing in the face of the kind gesture. He slapped the father. The mother ran to the phone. The man heard sirens outside.

The man cried. He clenched his locket.