I didn’t know why we were here. We never could just be a normal couple because Maddy wasn’t a normal girl. She was attracted to the weirdest things, like creepy yard sales in the middle of nowhere. I searched for her amidst all the junk, and after a minute of searching, recognized her figure bending over to look at something on the ground.
What was she doing now? I made my way over to her, dodging all the heaps of trinkets and overcrowded tables and knelt beside her.
“Ready to go yet?”
“Why?” she asked absentmindedly. “You were the one who wanted to road-trip, so that’s what we’re doing! Meeting the natives and not just watching from the car window.”
I sighed and looked at the object in her hand. “And what is that?”
She smiled. “I’m not sure, but it’s really neat, huh?” She met my eyes. “Will you buy it for me?”
I stared at the object. “It looks like a Pakman.” It was true. The figure was the size of a baseball and the color of a tomato. It was boxy with notches on the top, and on the front it had two large white eyes with dark pupils. It had no mouth.
She convinced me to buy the thing anyway and we took it to the owner who claimed he’d never seen the object but sold it to me anyway for three bucks. The pakman found a home on my desk for the rest of the brief relationship I shared with Maddy. A short time after we split, I decided it creeped me out, so I threw it in a closet.
When I came home from work the next day the pakman was sitting on my desk again. I was a little disturbed, and this time I put it in a taped shoebox and placed it back in my closet. I was a little afraid that it would be on my desk the next day when I got home, but it wasn’t. I laughed at myself and went to bed.
I woke up to a rattling noise coming from my closet. I closed my eyes and ignored it. The noise stopped; my heart was pounding. I finally opened my eyes, thinking nothing would be there.
The pakman sat inches from my face.
Well other than the fact that it's a pakman, I was most influenced by the color and eyes. It's red, which I think is the color of the pakman when he's chasing you. Also, the eyes just kinda creeped me out. I had a pretty hard time shortening this piece.
ReplyDeleteA kind of funny piece, despite its horror element at the end. It's terse, too, which helps with its economy, but I think a revision could trim some remaining excess ("I decided it creeped me out," "What was she doing now," etc.). Think about how little needs narration here. Do we need to be told about walking to the owner, or is the owner's response enough to signal this move has happened? I'd like to know a little more about Maddy, too. What does the narrator consider normal, and why would he or she want to be normal? What else is normal about the narrator's life? Does the narrator have any reason to think this thing is chasing him? Or should be?
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