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When I learned how alone I was in the house, there grew a breathtaking anxiety.
I began to swear at the movements of the waves across the balcony; their thoughtlessness no longer placating but insulting.
Pacing from room to room, my steps slowing like a man walking the desert,
I fear the night, where darkness leaves the lamps and television begging to glow.
Led to the balcony by moonlight, I sit with my eyes fixated on Orion.
He seemed to me not triumphant or hunting, but splayed and prone his face on the ground asleep in a hexagonal garden.
Then there was a spontaneous light of every color, a neon trail twisted and serpentine with seemingly no direction.
It lasted only a second or two, but a new feeling was overtaking the fear of being purposeless, I felt stalked.
The shore maintained a quiet breath-like hiss and there was not a single ship in the black bay.
I pleaded with omnipotent forces to emit the strange beam in the sky again.
I begged for it until a familiar celestial body began to alleviate the dark.
In the morning light, I meandered down to the beach and let the water break over my toes.
Looking down I tried to imagine the microbes floating, wondering if they felt or sensed me there.
I no longer felt alone, I looked down the shore to my left and realized why.
There were men in suits, standing shoe-less and staring towards the sun.
The closest was in a gray-suit, middle-aged, I started walking to him on a curious impulse.
His clothing was wrinkled, as if he had slept in it. He made no notice of me walking toward him.
He made no response as I said good morning, I stood in front of him but still his eyes were fixed above my head.
I waved my hand in front of his eyes, he blinked and his pupils dilated, then finally he broke his gaze and looked at me.
His face confused and contorted he moved like an animal in front of it's reflection, his head rocking on his neck left to right.
I asked him how he felt, he made no sound only watched my eyes bewildered. I had not yet looked away, I was now afraid to.
Instead of looking away I lifted my hands and shook his shoulders gently. He sat still a moment, and then shook me in return.
I faced away from him in frustration and walked back towards my house, suddenly wanting to be inside.
There was a stifled whimper behind me when I was a few yards off, I glanced back at him in surprise.
He was moving towards me slowly, toddling with his arms outward. I stopped suddenly and he copied. Quickened and so did he.
I tried to stare at the sun and by chance engage his original fixation, but his only fascination was me.
I passed my own house to meet an older man of nearly identical demeanor to the first, and yelled to him to no avail.
I shook his shoulders and his mouth fell open, he looked at me and then at my companion, then to me and nothing else.
I took a few steps back which he matched with a few forward. Now there were two followers, I was outnumbered.
With no other reaction in mind, I took flight. I did not look back. I ran until I was back inside and upstairs.
From the balcony I looked for them and could not find them. There was a scream at the front of the house, my mother's voice.
Instantly I flew to her, and saw them, at her car window pressing their faces to the glass.
She looked at me petrified, her face without color. I picked up a hammer from the garage floor and spun it claw forward.
My hands above my head, I roared at them without hesitation. They turned away from her car and moved towards me.
When they were almost close enough to touch I began to swing, but they showed no fear, no comprehension of the danger.
I backed away to avoid hitting them, but when my back hit the wall, the guilt was gone.
I buried the teeth of the hammer in the soft back of the older man's head, blood painting his partner.
He fell to the floor and seized, then he was still, so was I and the other man.
He looked down at the gore like a child looking into an open casket.
On his knees he tried to shake the man's shoulders, he grew louder and more frustrated each time.
Mom was honking at me, so I ran to her and got in.
As we were leaving the driveway I watched the man straining over the corpse, he was pulling and tugging at him.
When he stood and turned toward the car, I expected to see him with flesh in his mouth, but his face was clean.
He was leaning to the right, and the weight of a hammer was strange in his hand.