The street lights flickered, as did the gaunt figure beneath them. The first time this happened she was heading home from work, the sun was minutes from breaking the horizon and the world was still bathed in those final few moments of nocturnal neon.
She wouldn't have spotted him if he had stayed still but he seemed to move with the light and not exist without it. He became a part of her nightly walk home - turn left at the kebab shop, cross the road by the underground car park, lightly jog past the man who may or may not exist.
Then she began to notice that the lights were flickering faster and faster each night to the point where both man and street lamp pulsed in time with her own heartbeat and it felt like the world suddenly became so small she could hardly breathe but one glance into his eyes made her feel like she was on the precipice of a vast and unfathomable void that would swallow her if she took one step further and
And then he was gone. He just vanished as suddenly as he'd appeared, leaving her confused and feeling smaller than she'd ever felt before in her life. It was like he'd been holding the world closed and she'd accidentally peeped through the tear and seen the nothingness of the universe.
The street light never worked again.
She wouldn't have spotted him if he had stayed still but he seemed to move with the light and not exist without it. He became a part of her nightly walk home - turn left at the kebab shop, cross the road by the underground car park, lightly jog past the man who may or may not exist.
Then she began to notice that the lights were flickering faster and faster each night to the point where both man and street lamp pulsed in time with her own heartbeat and it felt like the world suddenly became so small she could hardly breathe but one glance into his eyes made her feel like she was on the precipice of a vast and unfathomable void that would swallow her if she took one step further and
And then he was gone. He just vanished as suddenly as he'd appeared, leaving her confused and feeling smaller than she'd ever felt before in her life. It was like he'd been holding the world closed and she'd accidentally peeped through the tear and seen the nothingness of the universe.
The street light never worked again.
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