Childhood Memory
It was a summer night in Murraysville, the burbs of Pittsburgh.
I was playing jailbreak with my friends and my sister, chasing some kid through a
stranger's backyard. My quarry fled around a corner while I stopped and bent over to catch my breath, hands resting on the knees of my denim jeans. I glanced up at movement from the corner of my eye and saw that the kid I'd been chasing had snuck back around the side of the house. He stared at me and mouthed something, then pointed.
I turned my head.
Standing on the back porch of the yard we were trespassing through was a man.
Though several years have passed, there are some things about him I'll never forget. He seemed tall and fit, wore a white collared shirt, had his hands in his pockets.
But the thing was, he had no face. The yellow porch light behind him lit up the edges of his gleaming bald head, igniting a false halo, but left his face in deepest shadow, as if dipped in ink.
He stood between me and the green gap between houses. I wanted to slip by him and back into the game going on without me. Being an idiot, I started to approach him, saying:
" Sorry. We were playing jailbreak and..."
Something the man did murdered the words still lying in my throat. Nothing.
No " get off my lawn ", no comforting tirade at all. I shut my mouth.
He just stood and stared, his head cocked slightly downwards. Even though his face was as unreadable as Slade Wilson's, it was clear his gaze was on me. I gave him a wide berth, invading the next door neighbor's backyard to avoid him. His head turned to follow me as I moved. I did not linger to see the porch light illuminate his features, but I do remember laying awake in bed that night thinking about the man, imagining looking out my bedroom window and seeing him far below, head tilted upwards, his face a black void even in moonlight. I should've gone back to his house by day just to see
him as he really was, but I never did.
If they ever invent time travel, I'm going back to that game of jailbreak
and I'm bringing a flashlight.
I was playing jailbreak with my friends and my sister, chasing some kid through a
stranger's backyard. My quarry fled around a corner while I stopped and bent over to catch my breath, hands resting on the knees of my denim jeans. I glanced up at movement from the corner of my eye and saw that the kid I'd been chasing had snuck back around the side of the house. He stared at me and mouthed something, then pointed.
I turned my head.
Standing on the back porch of the yard we were trespassing through was a man.
Though several years have passed, there are some things about him I'll never forget. He seemed tall and fit, wore a white collared shirt, had his hands in his pockets.
But the thing was, he had no face. The yellow porch light behind him lit up the edges of his gleaming bald head, igniting a false halo, but left his face in deepest shadow, as if dipped in ink.
He stood between me and the green gap between houses. I wanted to slip by him and back into the game going on without me. Being an idiot, I started to approach him, saying:
" Sorry. We were playing jailbreak and..."
Something the man did murdered the words still lying in my throat. Nothing.
No " get off my lawn ", no comforting tirade at all. I shut my mouth.
He just stood and stared, his head cocked slightly downwards. Even though his face was as unreadable as Slade Wilson's, it was clear his gaze was on me. I gave him a wide berth, invading the next door neighbor's backyard to avoid him. His head turned to follow me as I moved. I did not linger to see the porch light illuminate his features, but I do remember laying awake in bed that night thinking about the man, imagining looking out my bedroom window and seeing him far below, head tilted upwards, his face a black void even in moonlight. I should've gone back to his house by day just to see
him as he really was, but I never did.
If they ever invent time travel, I'm going back to that game of jailbreak
and I'm bringing a flashlight.