Let's Not Meet Again

4 AM What Are You Doing Here

Alright, stumbling over this subreddit made me remember this one encounter some 12 years ago. I was working my first job, driving a wheel loader at a recycling company. Picture a quite big area with gigantic piles of scrap metal and in the middle was an enormous building for processing paper.

So it's 4 am, early November and I'm blasting the heater hoping the warm air will start flowing before I turn into a popsicle. November mornings in Sweden are cold and dark and I'm working over time so I have this place to myself. Well dark if you don't count the 10 or so extra lights fitted to the machine. But they are all aimed at the ground around you, so you don't run over people with the disadvantage of making everything more than 10 yards away into solid darkness.

So I'm sitting there, in the middle of the yard – shivering, sipping coffee, smoking and hating life in general when I see someone materializing from the dark. My first instinct is that someone else figured they could use the over time but this person is coming from in between two piles of scrap metal and well, beyond that is fences, barbed wire and thick forest. He's walking in my general direction but not exactly towards me and everything is just wrong about this guy. He's not mean looking or anything, normal height, normal build, maybe in his 40's. Normal clothes, but no jacket which made me wonder how he could stand the cold.

So I study him as he approaches, he's constantly looking around him and when he gets closer I can see that his face and clothes are dirty as if he has walked through the forest from the city which is probably a good three hour walk, in daylight. He stops in front of the wheel loader, a bit to the left, but he never acknowledge the fact that I'm there. Here's this 20 ton machine, idling with mentioned lights but he just looks right through it, constantly searching for something.

I'm not scared, well ok I'm a little scared, but you gotta be polite so I open the door with some measure of hesitance. "Are you...", I lean back in and kill the engine so he can actually hear me. "Are you okay?" Nothing, I'm not there. "This is restricted area, you can't umm... really be here." He starts tapping his foot and biting his thumb nail as if he's nervous and I just remember that everything from his appearance to his body language is just so out of sync with the whole situation. I try again "Do you live around here?", nada. "It's really cold, can I get you some coffee?", not even a glance at me.

I really begin to freak out – should I call the security company, maybe the police, or ambulance, drive back home and call in sick? I try a few more questions but I get nowhere and I'm not willing to climb down either so I just sit there and look at him. It feels like forever but it was probably just a few minutes then he looks straight at me, right in the eyes. He doesn't say anything, just hold the stare for a few moments and then walks away. Once again, absolutely non threatening. He just looked tired and kinda haunted or something and I'm no longer shivering from the cold, I shiver because it's one hour since I awoke and I'm already having enough of this day.

Eventually I call the guard company when I'm fairly sure I won't have a panic attack and they come and I talk them into calling the police. Because once I had calmed down I realized that this guy could very well be in a crappy mental state and maybe hurt himself. But I never heard anything about it again.

Writing this down I feel like an overreacting drama queen but back then I felt like I was in an episode of x-files or something. Though whoever you were, I hope you're doing ok now but please let's not meet in the dark again.