I Know You

The room had no clock.

That was the first thing he noticed.

The second was the man sitting across from him.

“Do you think there’s a meaning to any of this?”

The man, unmoving.

“To what?”

“Me.”

“No.”

He looked down at his hands, wringing them.

“I think I need one.”

“Then you’ll find one.”

“And if I find the wrong one?”

“You probably will.”

He laughed quietly.

The man didn't.

“Do you believe people are good?”

“Some.”

“That's not an answer.”

“It is. You just wanted a different one.”

He studied the familiar features of the man’s face through the slight darkness of the room.

“Then what makes someone bad?”

The question was welcomed with an unfriendly smile.

“Knowing what they're capable of.”

“And doing it?”

“No.”

The man paused.

His smile disappeared.

“I loved someone once.”

“Did you?”

“I still do.”

“Do they know?”

“No.”

“You don’t love anyone.”

A harsh muttering thrown his way through clenched teeth. 

He looked away, not afraid, ashamed.

“I think about them constantly.”

“I know.”

“I imagine conversations with them.”

“I know.”

“I imagine what they would say. What they would think. What they would feel.”

“You've spent a great deal of time inside a person you've never actually known.”

He swallowed.

“Is that obsession?”

“Yes.”

“Is obsession bad?”

“Not for you.”

He sat very still, the creaking of an armchair doing little to capture his attention. 

“I don't know where I end.”

The man, closer, watched him, and said nothing.

“I don't know what parts of me are actually… me.”

“Which parts would you like to keep?”

He frowned.

“I don't know. It scares me.”

“What does?”

“Not knowing myself.”

The man paused.

A blanket of heaviness settled upon his chest. The face of the man closer. Illuminated slightly by the light of the gaslamp. 

For a long moment, neither of them moved.

Then, quietly…

“I know you.”

He looked up.

“How?”

He frowned.

“You've spent so much time questioning whether your feelings are real and now you don’t know if you are real.”

He stared at the man.

His face went pale. He knew those eyes.

“Who are you?”

The man smiled through his eyebrows.

“You know me.”

He stopped.

“No…I don’t.”

The man stalked closer, purring. 

“You've been looking for yourself in other people for a very long time.”

He swallowed.

“And you're afraid that if you keep looking…”

Hairs prickled the back of his neck. 

“…you'll find something you don't recognize.”

Fear swept his body.

“What if I don't like what I find?”

“You won't.”

“How do you know?”

“You found me.”

Silence crystallized the air. Terrified eyes stared back at terrified eyes. 

“Am I Jekyll or Hyde?”

The man did not answer.

His familiar eyes simply darkened.

Unyielding.

The room had no clock.