Writing Prompt Boot Camp, Day 11

The Stranger

I decided to take a shortcut on my walk home from work. I hoped the new route would burn of the thousand steps left on my daily step target. Some of the alleys I went down were a bit shady, and it felt like the odor of the homeless people I passed stuck to my clothes and my shoes. I guess that smell sanded away another layer of my empathy, but all I wanted to do was get home. And meet my step quota.

I turned the corner and found myself in an alley that I knew lead to the street that would finally take me home. The opening at the end of the alley was still full of the sunset glow and I quickened my pace. I wanted to get out of the dark and feel the warmth of the early Summer sunset. My anticipation of feeling the end of day sun on my face shoved my situational awareness to the side of my conscious mind, so running into something was inevitable.

But I didn’t run into something, I ran into someone.

“Excuse me, I didn’t see you,” I said on reflex as I bounced off the person I walked right into. I took a step back to straighten my clothes and make sure I wasn’t injured.

“Give me your palm,” the stranger said.

“The fuck you say?” I asked while trying to get a look at who I ran into. They were tall, clad from head to toe in dark clothes, their head and face obscured by a hood and a mask. Their voice was muffled, their gender impossible to determine.

“Give me your palm if you want to go home,” the stranger said, in a tone of flat command.

A “deer in the headlights” feeling washed over me very quickly, and I knew that if I did not do what this stranger told me to do, I would be in very deep shit.

I held out my right hand, palm up.

The stranger tilted their head to one side and took my right and in their right hand. They brought their left over and above my upturned palm, extended their left index finger, bent their wrist, and pointed the finger down into the center of my hand.

For several seconds, nothing happened. I could not hear anything, not even my own heartbeat. The stranger straightened their head, released my hand and brought their own hands back to the sides of their body.

“You can go home now,” the stranger said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

The stranger walked right past me, brushing me aside with their shoulder. They began to run down the alley where I had come. Before I knew it, they disappeared from sight.

I walked the rest of the way home in a silent daze, afraid to say anything, to attract any kind of attention. I didn’t want that stranger to find me again. I let myself into my building and then my apartment. The answering machine’s message light was blinking.

I pressed PLAY before I could stop myself.

I really wish I hadn’t.