The Visitor at Dusk
It was early. Gray light filtered through the window and gently illuminated the room. I glanced at the clock. The digital neon numbers seemed to read at an angle, as if the entire apartment was on a slight incline. It was early. I had not set an alarm, but I was awake anyway. My body pushed itself out of bed; force of habit arrested control of my limbs. The air seemed stiff and heavy, resisting my every movement. The carpet below my feet was neither cold nor warm as I walked mechanically to the bathroom. Upon opening the door, I stopped suddenly. For a moment, I beheld the shadowy image of someone in the mirror. Instinctively, I stepped back and began apologizing. Then I remembered I lived alone. I cleared my throat. I needed a drink.
The bathroom lights, usually blindingly bright at such an hour, did not faze me that morning. I went about my usual business, only stopping to throw cold water onto my face. I lifted my head after doing so, drops of icy liquid creeping down my cheeks, and looked into the mirror. Under normal circumstances, I almost certainly would have been shocked at my appearance. My skin was pale. My eyes were sunken gray orbs. When was the last time I showered? The thought occurred to me. I lifted my arm slightly and sniffed. I smelled like nothing.
I spent that day wandering the halls of the apartment as the rooms changed from gray to orange to white and back to orange. It was Sunday. Where was I supposed to go? Church? I imagined that God, if He does exist, could find me in this cramped apartment just as well as in an exaggerated auditorium. At some point, I recognized that the phone was ringing. A shrill, persistent sound, like someone was rapidly striking a tiny bell in my brain. I did not know how long it had been ringing. I waited. It continued. I finally answered it, if only to stop that awful ringing.
“I called you six times.”
It was my sister. Her voice had lost its usual edge. I imagined her nervously pacing back and forth, back and forth on the same spot as she pressed her phone to her face. I apologized, and said I was in the shower. That seemed to appease her. We talked for some time—it may have been ten minutes or an hour—about various inconsequential topics.
Eventually, she said, “We haven’t decided on a day yet.”
She spoke slowly, each syllable resting on her tongue before it became audible. She waited for me to say something, but I just listened to the static in my head. After this, she apparently ran out of things to say, and we hung up.
It was just after sunset when the visitor arrived. He wore a somber, dark suit, like he had come from a funeral. His raven hair was trimmed close, his face was clean-shaven, and his eyes pierced right into the depths of my soul. I did not know him, but he was somehow familiar. When I opened the door, he did not greet me or even smile; he just nodded sagely, and I let him in. My eyes landed on the brown bag in his hand marked with a yellow “M.”
“I passed a McDonald’s on the way here,” he said by way of explanation. “You haven’t eaten all day, have you?”
I shook my head. Without changing his expression, he extended his arm and held out the bag of fast food. Under normal circumstances, I almost certainly would have thought myself insane to allow a stranger in a suit carrying a bag of McDonald’s into my home. I took the bag from him, and he lowered himself onto the couch. For a time I stood there, cradling the paper bag in my hands, letting the warmth soak into my fingers.
“You need to eat,” the visitor insisted.
So I ate. The food passed from my lips to my throat without much interference in between. My taste buds must have taken the day off. It was like eating water, but with less texture. The visitor watched me silently as I ingested my meal.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after I had finished.
I did not want to talk about it. But I felt like I had to, like he already knew the answer to his question. Yet what was there to say? I thought about it at length. Twenty-four years is a long time. Then, a memory came to me unprompted.
“She taught me about the stars, you know. The stars and the planets and the galaxy. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. She would go with me to the public library to get books about space because I had read all the ones in the school’s library. She bought me a NASA lunch box and a backpack with a space shuttle on it. In the third grade I did my biography project on Neil Armstrong. I remember her explaining to me why Neil Armstrong had said ‘One small step for man.’ She said all the weight in the world had been placed on that one man, and when he made that step, he became something greater than himself.”
I went on like this for quite some time. The visitor listened patiently until he decided I had said all I needed to, and then he stood up, straightened his suit, and left.
“Take your time,” he said as he was closing the door. There may have been a hint of a smile in his voice.
I was alone again. It was late. After some demurral, I decided to leave the apartment. As I stepped outside, a chilly finger of wind ruffled my hair. I looked up and found myself staring into a host of heavenly lights—all those distant suns looking down on me. I began to cry.