The Man Beyond The Trees

Part ✌️🏿

His eyes were sunken into his skull, and the tips of his mouth looked as if they went all the way down to the tip of his chin. His nose was hooked downward and his skin looked like moldy old leather. He was dressed in a long-sleeved grey shirt, buttoned up all the way, and slacks that could have been beige at one point, but were so muddy and dirty that you couldn't have a sure guess at the color.

He stared at me and I stared at him. The more I stared, the more his face looked like it was sliding off ever so slightly.

At one point I realized that we had been staring silently at each other for more than a few minutes, so I cleared my throat and blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"How are you, Sir?"
His eyes lost a bit of that vagueness, and for a second it was like he was only just realizing that I was there. He looked at me hard for a few seconds, then the Misty vagueness returned.

A knot suddenly formed in the pit of my stomach, and I felt the need to get away from there as soon as possible. I said a hasty goodbye and biked away from there as fast as I could. I didn't look back.

He had not said a word.
There's a man who watches from beyond the trees. Now he only watches me.

After that I didn't try to speak to the man. Every time I had to go past him, I got a sickening feeling in my stomach that didn't go away until that spot was far behind me. I tried not to look at where the man was, but sometimes I would not be able to keep my eyes from glancing.

He always had his eyes on me. He never looked away.

I didn't like him at all, especially not the way he looked at me. He did not leer, frown, smile or grimace. He simply stared, his face unchanging, set in stone. Sometimes I would feel angry when I saw him. Sometimes I threw rocks.