I was nineteen when he visited for the first time. It was very late and the bedroom was pitch black.
“Miles,” he whispered. “Miles. Can you hear me?”
My eyes were wide but only darkness met them. I couldn’t see who was talking.
“Yes,” I whispered back.
“A few more years,” he cooed into my left ear. “Just wait another few years and you’ll learn who I am.”
I reached out, trying to touch the producer of the voice. My hands grabbed the air. I turned over and groped for the bedside lamp and flipped the switch. Pale light poured into the bedroom. I was alone.
I didn’t realize at the time that that would be a constant. A theme.
It’s now been eighteen years since I was visited that night. I’ve spent it by myself.
I wish I could call those years happy and productive. They were, in fact, the opposite. I am depressed. Unemployable. “Mentally ill,” is the official term that lets me collect money for doing nothing but sit at home all day.
Well, not quite nothing.
I daydream. I fantasize about the man who spoke to me that night. I picture him swooping in and knocking on my door, bringing riches and surprises that would heal my ruined psyche. He’d be my guardian angel; a heavenly respite from my day-to-day misery.
For nearly two decades, those dreams went unrealized.
Until last night. Continue reading “A Most Welcome Visitor”
