Familiarity

His throat closes when his eyes open. Cold sweat runs down his forehead as he stares at the dark ceiling. He’s breathless. Shapes form in the shadows—things he wants to bury away. ‘You’re dead,’ a haunting voice whispers from the back of his mind, refusing to be silent. Past memories of those dead and gone, coming to haunt him. Chaos, it seems, reaches its very hand into his head, gripping hold of his will, his thoughts, his air. Voices, voices, voices entrap him in his own coffin of terror. They all vanish when a dog barks outside his window. It jolts him; finally, he can gasp for air. The visions are gone, but the voices linger. ‘Tonight’s the night.’ Terrors have always plagued Gideon. Only recently has it started to affect him physically.

His thin mattress creaks as he wills himself to sit up. He sets his feet on the cold floor. ‘This is it.’ He looks up once more, convincing himself they aren’t real, that they can’t hurt him. Making monsters out of shadows is for kids. He blows out sharply and wipes the sweat from his neck, checking the time.

3:43 A.M.

Great. He was finally able to land a job interview, but he can’t seem to sleep. ‘Failure.’ Everything is riding on this single opportunity. If he can’t get this job, he’s not sure how much longer he can keep scraping by, or if he can. The pressure gnaws at his mind, his chest, making each second of lost sleep like sand slipping through an hourglass of hopelessness. Looking back at his pillow, Gideon contemplates whether or not he should try again. The creeping linger of his dreams convinces him otherwise. Echoing barks from that lousy dog draw him to the window. It’s fogged by the brisk weather.

Maybe he needs some fresh air.

Journeying on the uneven tiles, his cold feet find the fleeting warmth of thin socks and his oldest pair of boots. They’re also his only pair of boots. He feels around in the dark for his jacket and beanie. The useless light switch on his wall tells him that he’s overdue on electricity bills. Again. 'Of course I am.'

Cold air entraps Gideon when he steps outside, and he pulls his frayed beanie over his shaggy brown hair. His nose quickly becomes red and runny within a few steps of his door.

“Yeah, sure, take a walk when it’s below freezing, Gideon, great idea,” He sneers to himself. “What an idiot,”

He stuffs his gloved hands in his oversized coat as he walks. The faint squeal of wheels is the only company around him. Coming upon a familiar neon glow of the corner store, he pauses. Red, red, red. His vision blurs into the memory of the dream. The broken sign blinks at him. 'Maybe they’re short on rent this month, too, ' Gideon thinks, pulling himself away from his sinking mind. He catches his reflection in the darkened window. Has he always looked this horrible? 'I’m tired of this.' His eyes are empty husks with dark circles painted around them. He blinks. He looks familiar- shadowy, almost. Haunted.

The street lamp flickers behind him, and for a moment, he sees another face. Darker than his. With sunken black eyes, staring into his.

He lurches back, heart pounding. That can’t be real. He must be seeing things. He has to be.

He looks at his own face, alone again, in horror. What is happening to him? He feels like he’s turning into some…thing. A monster. Is that what he’s become? Or is it what he’s becoming?

He steps back again and instantly hits a shopping cart, toppling it over.

Spinning around with frantic eyes and shallow breaths, he sees a man beside him who looks almost just as surprised. He’s dressed in rags, with layers of holey coats covering him. He’s old, unshaven, and obviously homeless. 'You’re not too far off from that, Gideon.' He shuts his eyes, trying to block the voice out, but all he can see is the reflection, the terror.

“Son, are you alright?”

His eyes shoot open, and he looks back at the man, trembling. The man’s face now looks calm, at peace. The view shakes Gideon back to reality, who takes in a deep breath and looks around. The shopping cart he knocked over still lies on the ground. Bags of groceries and clothes have fallen out, lying on the cold, wet asphalt.

“I- Sorry,” Gideon manages. He stumbles over himself trying to clean the mess.

“It’s alright, boy,” The man says, patiently waiting. He’s leaned over, keeping a hand on the nearby lamp post for support. “You’re okay, boy.”

Pushing those words down, Gideon elects to ignore the old man, quickly putting fruit, crackers, and socks back into the bags. He set the cart upright again, placing everything inside. 'It looks neater than my own place,' he muses.

“Alright, sir,” Gideon says, telling himself to take a few more deep breaths. Without thinking, he strips off his gloves and puts them into the basket as well. “You, uh- stay warm out there, I guess,”

The man steps past the basket, towards Gideon. He’s bent over, but instead of grabbing onto something for support, he grabs Gideon’s hands and peers into his eyes. The man has brown eyes that appear bright in the darkness around him. His hands are littered with scars, old and new. They’re twisted and deformed. They’re rough and calloused. They press into Gideon’s hands for support. “As much as you did it to one of the least of these, my son, you did it to Me,” He croaks. Squeezing Gideon’s hands with a foreign gentleness, he says, “God bless you, my son.”

Gideon didn’t move when the man let go. He didn’t move when the man put on the gloves on those deformed hands, or when he walked away. He stood for what seemed like an eternity. His breath had left him again, but he didn’t feel strangled. His hands felt so warm without those gloves.

“That…” that sounded familiar. Why did that sound so familiar? A strange warmth filled his lungs before he stumbled down the road again. Everything was a blur. Gideon could only focus on one thing- that man. What was he talking about? What did he mean by it? His eyebrows tensed when he turned the corner. That saying… he knows he heard it someplace before. The fleeting hint of a memory seems to escape him before he can get a taste of what it even is. What was it?

The wind howls- forcing Gideon from his spiraling mind. His hands had finally succumbed to the bitter frost of the weather, and his coat was hardly aiding in their warmth. The way the stray dogs bark, the speeding tires screech across the pavement, and how the trees rustle together make the bridge in front of Gideon appear as a place of refuge. He may be exposed more to the elements, but at least he won’t be on the same level as everything. 'That’s because you’re below everything.' He catches himself trying to physically shake the thought away.

“Just focus on the water, Gideon,” He tells himself, leaning on the railing. He closes his eyes, hoping the terrors don’t come back. When they evidently try to, he opens them to the still river below. It flows gently underneath the bridge, undisturbed. 'I wish I were that peaceful.' Here, the wind stops, for just a moment. Here, Gideon can finally have a moment to think.

As he takes in a deep breath, the man enters his thoughts once again. If only he knew who Gideon was, he wouldn’t have even thanked him or spared him a second glance. If he knew the mess, the failures, the lost friends, the lost family… he let out a shaky sigh at the memory of his mom. Why is he still here? Everyone else has left him and abandoned him. Looking at the peaceful water below, Gideon’s grip on the railing loosens. 'I wish I could be that water. I wish I were peaceful. I hate this life, why can’t I just-'

Wait.

His mom.

Gideon’s eyes widen as he steps from the ledge. He knows where he heard that phrase. It was from his mom. She used to read to him before bed every night before she died. What was it again? Ah, now he remembers. He remembers that worn black cover, a gold bookmark, and red letters. She used to read the Bible to him at night. She said it kept nightmares away. Nightmares. Terrors. A lot of good that did her anyway. Now she’s six feet in the grave, and Gideon is about to be.

He was never one to joke about that stuff, but now, facing the ledge, it’s the only thing keeping him from going.

'Go ahead. Do it.'

Gideon’s breath slowly leaves him. Yeah, a lot of good that did her. He wonders how someone could believe in something so obviously imaginary? If there was a god out there, he obviously didn’t care about Gideon. If He was who He said He was, Gideon would have been shown. Surely. Because if He actually cared, He wouldn’t let Gideon step from the ledge. Would He? Wouldn’t He send a sign? Any type of love to show Gideon that He’s even there!

His hands begin to burn in the places where the man held them. They burn like fire. It begins to travel up his arms. It swells in his chest with a pressure he’s never felt before.

He can’t stand the flames that he feels.

Steeling himself, he begins to lift one foot over the railing.

Then the wind howls, breaking the sickening silence. With it, a rushing force of a hurricane.

It blows against Gideon so hard that he has to latch onto the railing to hold on. It blows through the trees, shaking the leaves off. It blows down the street, lifting tossed newspapers into flight.

It blows into Gideon, and suddenly, the pressure in his chest has lifted.

When it subsides, all Gideon can do is look up in awe. His knees hit the ground as he mutters, “Are You real?”

Gideon can finally breathe.