The Man in the Corner of the Room

Teddy rubbed his weary eyes as the morning sunlight beamed between the open curtains and wriggled its way through the gaps between his fingers. He stretched his arms and yawned, facing the glow-in-the-dark stars stickered above, which were now camouflaged within the white blankness of the ceiling.

Teddy had a plan for the day. It was a very particular plan. He would get out of bed, brush his teeth, get dressed, slip on his favourite fluffy slippers, go downstairs, eat breakfast and then paint the final picture in his newest collection. This plan, however, was quickly interrupted when his eyes adjusted to the light and he spotted something in the corner of his room. It was a man.

‘What are you doing here?’ Teddy asked, hugging his blanket.

The man didn’t respond. He was tall. Freakishly tall. His head had to lean forward, bending his neck, just for him to fit inside the room as he stood up straight. He was thin, with long droopy arms, and he wore a tattered, dusty old suit and tie. His face was pale, long, and wrinkly. The frown of his mouth alone was almost as long as Teddy’s entire head. He looked rather scary.

‘I said, what are you doing here?’ Teddy repeated.

The man’s head turned with a quick jolt to face Teddy. However, his expression didn’t change. The sudden movement startled Teddy, who shuffled back towards the wall, gripping his blanket even tighter, as if it were a shield.

‘Don’t mind me,’ said a low, croaky voice from within the man, though his mouth didn’t move. Not properly, at least. It sort of stretched and waved like Teddy’s curtains might on a particularly windy day.

‘I most certainly will mind you,’ Teddy replied. ‘You’re in my bedroom, and I would like you to leave.’

‘I’ve been here as long as you have,’ The man replied.

Suddenly, he began to move. Stepping from one corner of the room to another, striding with his long, thin legs. He pushed back into the new corner, replicating the very same still, cornered stature with his head hanging low. He retained eye contact with Teddy as he did so.

‘No, you haven’t, ’ Teddy said. ‘I’d have noticed you by now.’

The man didn’t respond. He just continued to stare. That made Teddy very uncomfortable. He could tell the man was stubborn and wasn’t sure how he could possibly force him out. So, carefully, whilst watching the man closely, Teddy pushed away his blanket, slid out of bed and placed each of his feet into his fluffy blue slippers. Then, he began to approach the door to leave.

Before Teddy could reach the door, however, the man slid sideways across the room again, his limbs and fingers scraping the wall like bristles on a brush, and he placed himself into a third corner of the room. This one happened to be where the door was, and now Teddy couldn’t leave.

‘Hey!’ Teddy cried. ‘I was about to go through there.’

‘Oh, were you?’ The man grumbled. ‘My apologies, I didn’t realise.’

Despite the man’s apology, Teddy could tell he had realised. It was quite obvious he had been heading to do the door, and so the man’s statement seemed shallow.

He clearly had some more complicated intentions, and Teddy feared what they might be. He also couldn’t help but wonder why the man never seemed to stop anywhere in the middle of the room, or even on the flat sides. He looked huge and scary, but squished himself away from the centre of the room like a nervous party-goer.

‘Why do you keep switching corners?’ Teddy asked.

The man didn’t respond. He just looked down at Teddy, who was just a few footsteps away from him. Teddy found that quite interesting. He wondered what made the man move.

‘You’re in my way,’ he said.

The man’s frown sank lower, stretching further. He took yet another long stride to the final corner of the rectangular room, but this time, he stretched out one of his long arms, so that one of his hands remained above the door, dangling down like a claw machine. Teddy found that to be rather suspicious.

‘You may leave,’ the man said.

‘Not a chance,’ Teddy replied. ‘Why is your hand above the door?’

The man didn’t respond. Now Teddy was starting to find the whole ordeal quite frustrating. He marched across his room, trying his best to be brave, and pulled out his art drying rack, which had been slotted between his bed and the wall. He folded it out, pushed out the wheels with his feet and pushed it as hard as he could, sending it flying towards the corner of the room the man had been standing in. As it screeched across the floor and approached the man, he swiftly moved back towards his dangling hand by the door. This movement wasn’t exactly a step, though. It was more of a formless drift. Dashing without thought, without hesitation, like a reflex.

The man was beginning to look angry, his frown falling even lower. Quickly, he stretched his arms and pushed out his open hands towards Teddy as if he were trying to grab him.

Teddy gasped and fell backwards, using all of his arms and legs to crawl to the other side of the room desperately. Then, the man shifted again. Morphing himself into a twisting clay branch reaching to the far corner of the room, closest to Teddy. Then, he rebuilt himself, returning to his original shape, before once again reaching his hands out to try and grab Teddy.

Teddy ran to his bed, grabbed his blanket and pillow and chucked it over to the man’s corner, making him seemingly unwillingly morph again, back to the original corner he had started in, right past the corner with the art drying rack. As if these obstacles were blocking his path or filling his designated spots. His long arms flopped to the ground, then quickly slid back over to him like the flick had been pushed on one of those clever self-retracting measuring tapes Teddy’s father had in the garage.

Now, one corner of the room had his art drying rack pushed toward the wall, and another was filled with a blanket and a pillow. Teddy was running out of stuff. He looked around his room, and all he had was his now-empty bed and mattress. He wriggled around it, feeling safe enough on the flat centre of the wall. He placed both of his hands on the bedframe and began to push it towards the man. If he were quick, he could morph the man away from that corner, too. He pushed and stretched and grunted, using all his strength. And the bed did begin to move, but before he could get close enough, the man saw what he was doing, and once again stretched out his arms to reach for Teddy.

He needed to make the man move, quick, or he was in big trouble. And Teddy had an idea. He turned and dashed for the door, in the only empty corner of the room, and just before he reached it, the man morphed again towards him. Teddy was ready, however, so his reflexes were sharp when he jolted back and dodged him.

He scurried back to the bed and began to push it again, moving it even closer to the corner, and before long, there was no more than a tiny gap between the bed frame and the wall, but the man morphed back once again, reaching out, quicker now. His frown was drooping like chewed gum, swinging with each movement.

‘What are you?’ Teddy asked.

‘I am the thing in the corner of your room,’ the man replied, which seemed rather obvious to Teddy, and like a pointless statement to make.

‘You’re not a person, though, are you?’ Teddy asked. ‘You’re not like me, or Daddy, or Mummy,’ he added.

‘I am what’s left when the lights go out,’ the man told him, before swinging an arm to grab Teddy. ‘But you left the curtains open, boy, and now I remain,’

Teddy ducked, dodging the swinging arm, and turned again towards the door. He ran quickly, knowing the man would be onto his strategy by now and would be far more ready than before to catch him.

‘And I intend to stay,’ the man added with a grumble.

As the man morphed again, Teddy wasted no time and hurried back to the bed frame. He grabbed it tightly with both hands and groaned as he made the final push. The gap between the wall and the bed frame closed, and the man was unable to morph back over to it. Teddy’s theory was proven. This strange man is fixed to empty corners. Like the monsters you might see in the dark, always in the corner, always standing still, watching you. The ones that go away when you turn on the lights and see a coat rack, or painting, or cupboard in its place, putting an explanation to a shape. But this morning, Teddy hadn’t needed to turn on the lights, with the open curtains making way for the morning sun, so this particular monster had never been sent away.

In the light, the man couldn’t become furniture or take on a shadow's form. He was limited to the empty space. And in a moment, there would be no space left for him.

He stood above the door, Teddy’s only escape, and his frown swung and his arms flailed. Teddy furrowed his brows and squinted his eyes. He took a long, deep breath and then leapt forwards, straight towards the man, growling like a warrior and jumped with two high fists right into his torso, and then…

Poof.

The man unravelled into mist and faded away before Teddy could make contact, like the force of air from his leap simply blew him away. This corner was now taken, just like the rest. Teddy sighed and slumped to the floor in exhaustion. Then, he looked out at the state of his bedroom. He had fought a battle for his land and won. Now it was time for breakfast.