The stranger stranger

“The first time I saw him it was in the movie theatre. He sat down in the seat infront of me and his head was blocking my view of the screen.
I was annoyed at first, you know, because people with big heads always seemed to pick the seat in front of me at the movies and I’m usually too polite to say anything.

But this man’s head was something else. It was enormous. Practically a watermelon with hair. I mean, you could have projected the whole movie on the back of this guy’s head, it was so huge
And I thought, “It’s no good. There’s no way I’m going to be able to see this picture with this giant headed freak sitting infront of me.

So I looked around for another seat to move to but the cinema was packed. I couldn’t see a free seat anywhere; mind you, it was dark but it looked to me like there was just nowhere else to sit.

So, I started to think, “Maybe I should say something to this guy infront. Maybe ask him to move his head to one side a little bit”.

And that’s when I leaned forward, you see, because I was about to tap this guy on the shoulder when I noticed something else about him; something kind of weird about the shape of his ears.

They were pointed, you understand? Like the ears of one of Santa’s elves or like Mr Spock on Star Trek.

When I saw them I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing, you know? I had to stare at them for a long time just to convince myself that they were really real.

I almost wanted to reach out and touch one of them just to see if it felt like it looked, you know?

Then, when I was certain I wasn’t hallucinating or being tricked by the light and shadows in the movie theatre, I leant back in my seat again and I was in shock.

“What the hell?”, I thought, “What is that thing sitting in front of me? Some big headed elf?
A mutant? A martian?”.

But then it occurred to me, the way it probably would to most people, that perhaps the ears and the head weren’t real; that, perhaps it was just some kind of costume the guy infront was wearing.

And that would’ve made sense maybe, if the picture being shown was a Science-Fiction or a fantasy
or a horror movie; then I could understand someone wanting to dress up like a martian but this
was a war picture, “The Bridge at Remagen”.

And then, that’s when I caught a glimpse of this person’s; this creature’s hand, reaching into a big
container of popcorn and then I knew for certain that this was no ordinary human being just wearing a costume; because this hand, I swear, it had eight fingers and it was covered in hair; it looked more like a tarantula than a hand and it had long clawed fingernails and then, putting my ear against the back of the seat infront, I heard the sound of this thing eating popcorn and it was just horrible; like listening to a farm animal eating out of a trough, or maybe two farm animals, because I’m pretty sure this creature had two mouths from the sound of them although I never actually saw this things face.
But, to be honest, I didn’t really want to see its face. All that I’d seen and heard was enough for me and I got up from my seat and got out of that movie theatre as fast as I could; matter of fact, I almost knocked over an usherette, I was in such a hurry to get out.

Ofcourse, once I got out of the theatre and got back home, I started to have doubts; I started to wonder if maybe I had been mistaken or been hallucinating or day dreaming or, perhaps, I thought,
it really had been just some person in a Halloween costume even though it was the middle of July.

And, by the next day, I had totally convinced myself that I had just imagined the whole thing but then; later, that same day, I was sitting on a bus, going to work and, just two seats down from where I was sitting, I saw that big, bulbous head and those pointed ears again. Only, this time it wasn’t dark; it was broad daylight and I also noticed the colour of this creatures skin; it was silver-grey and scaly just like a fish.

Anyway, then the bus stopped and this thing got off; I remember it was wearing a grey, flannel suit and a purple tie and I also remember that no one else on the bus seemed to notice anything weird about this thing as it was on the bus, not even the driver who seemed almost friendly to it which I thought was pretty strange and then I got up from my seat and was about to rush off of the bus and after this creature but the doors had already closed and the driver refused to open them again until the next stop.

I tried looking out of the bus window to see if I could see him in the street, walking by, but I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was like he’d just vanished as soon as he’d gotten off the bus.

But, even so, that wasn’t the last I saw of him. Twice more, he just seemed to pop up out of nowhere. Once, as I was sitting in a restaurant, I saw him walking past the window and I ran out of the restaurant to see if I could stop him but he disappeared then too. The other time, I was sitting on a subway train, going down town, when I saw him in another carriage, reading a newspaper with it held right infront of his face but then the train stopped and, just as he was getting off his compartment, the compartment I was in flooded with people. I tried to push my way through them and get out onto the platform to take a look at him; in fact I almost ended up getting into a fist fight with a couple of tourists who thought I was a pickpocket or pervert or something, but I couldn’t get off of the train in time, the doors had already closed and the train had started to move.

Anyway, Doctor. You’ve heard my story. What do you think? You think I’ve lost my mind, right?”, asked the man sitting infront of the psychiatrist’s desk in his office.

“Oh, no, ofcourse not”, said the Doctor, chuckling, “You’re just in denial, that’s all”.

“Denial?”, asked the man, bewildered, “Denial of what?”.

The Psychiatrist stood up and moved over to the window of his office, drawing open the pleated black curtain and, as he did so, the man covered his eyes because he knew what was out there, outside the pane of glass and he didn’t want to see it.

But then a large hairy hand like a tarantula, with long crooked claws pulled away his quivering hand from his face and he had no choice but to look at them; the insignia of the aliens on all the buildings; the alien flag flying proudly from a mast in the hospital grounds.

“That we are being ruled by aliens, of course. A lot of people did what you did, after the invasion. Tried to blot it all out”, said the psychiatrist, “But we must face the things we fear, mustn’t we?”.
And then that hairy hand pushed upon the back of the swivel chair in which he was sitting and he was turned to face its owner.