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That man. I’ve seen him before, I know it – seen him peering at me on Parkhurst Street from the stationery shop, or on the nearby kerb hunched over like an old spider.
In the past weeks I’ve felt eyes, keen and sharp, following me as I go about my business. Sometimes he looks like an old man, and sometimes he’s unseen.
I’d laugh if I wasn’t so terrified. I’ve only known that penetrating gaze before from one man. That man is dead now, and would be the last person on Earth to put faith in ghost stories.
Has his spirit finally condescended to haunt me in truth? He has haunted me these last years in my mind: I died because of you, because you were brainless enough to trust a patently false message and left me alone in the face of the enemy. But always before I knew that that was my conscience berating me. Now, the eyes and the presence are palpable.
Perhaps it is some villain from my prior life. But surely a criminal or his confederates would simply confront me, not watch me. Nothing in my life is worth watching these days; I stand with the other gawkers at the murder scene.
Still, maybe he is just an old man. And I am sorry for spilling his books.