Familiar Faces

I’m sure all of you have at least once seen someone and you could swear that you knew them but couldn’t quite tell how you did. At least I hope y’all have otherwise I might be going crazy. Granted with the past week I have had I’m not to far from jumping to that conclusion. I do truly wonder if I should stop writing this and just feign ignorance maybe if I just pretend, I don’t know what I do now maybe just maybe I’ll be ok.

NO, I need to share this I need to make other people aware of what is happening underneath our noses. As I was saying we have all had those experiences where we see someone, and they seem so familiar, but you don’t know why. The only reason why I caught on to this was the fact that it happened more and more I don’t know what made me different then presumably everyone else but hopefully calling attention to it will bring more people into view.

Ok… huh where do I start though. You know what I’ll just start from where I had my first suspicions. I was on my way to work it was a cold autumn day you know the days where the mornings are brutally cold and the rest of the day just as brutally hot. The sharp wind stabbing at my cheeks prompted a quick detour to pick a hot coffee before braving the cold once again. Entering the coffee shop the expected scents assaulted my nose you know coffee coffee and get this more coffee. It was warm it was a nice respite but sadly I knew I wasn’t there for long. I ordered from the barista her brown curls bouncy with every word. This wasn’t the first time I’ve stopped here in fact I tend to come up with a reason almost everyday.

The wait I don’t think it was long but while I was standing there, I swear I could feel eyes burning their way into my back. I’m a pretty antisocial/paranoid whatever you want to call so I quickly glanced around trying to locate the source and out of the corner of my eye I saw this one old lady who was peering at me over the top of the book she was reading. I didn’t stare for long lest it just be a coincidence I didn’t want to bother some old lady, but she seemed so familiar. I can’t tell you what about her was specifically causing this but I partially have narrowed it down to either the short grey hair with the sparse one or two shocks of black hair or it was the glare something about it was so reminiscent of a mothers glare that she uses when she doesn’t feel like verbally correcting you.

Apparently I was staring more than I thought Iw was because apparently I missed the first time my name was called the second time though pulled me out, even though I wanted to go to talk to the lady I tend to avoid confrontation so to play on the side of the idea that its just one of those times I opted to ignore and head off to work.

Even through the shock of cold I couldn’t quite drop the feeling that I knew that lady there was just something so familiar about it, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. I did the best I could to push her to the back of my mind and bundle up and went on my way. 

Finally, I got into the office and out of the cold it was normal work nothing special just kept my head down and tried to focus on getting done and getting out of there. Around lunch time I dug myself out of my work to stretch my legs and eat a little something as I stood up from my desk I glanced around, and I saw another one of them. ONCE a day I chalk it up to coincidence but if it’s this often it starts to get suspicious, and I dove of that board instantly. Catching a glimpse of him I opted to just say seated at my desk and keep my head down. He was even more off than the old lady. With the old lady it felt like maybe she was a distant relative that I saw at a family reunion when I was younger. Him however it was closer it felt like I could’ve been best friends with him for years, but I couldn’t even begin to place a name to his face… now that I’m writing this I realize just how off putting that is since he presumably is a coworker from the office which is relatively small. After seeing him I didn’t leave my desk again and then at the end of the day I rushed out of there just trying to get home and do anything at all to calm my nerves. That’s all this was right nerves I was just on edge and my mind was filling in the blanks.

But what if its not? What if there is something off? My head was swirling with questions none of them did I genuinely want the answer to. Getting home the questions didn’t stop coming I tried to just shove them down and ignore them. Nothing I did was helping there was always this nagging at the back of my head something just below the surface begging and clawing to be released. After trying to drown it out I decided that I might as well indulge it so I can show myself just how crazy I was being. So I decided to write as much as I could remember about each of the down every detail see if anything stuck out. No dice there other than I did realize I recognize the book the lady was reading. It was still a vague memory but I remembered nonetheless. I don’t remember what it was about but I did recognize the title the last time I had heard of the book was when I was younger and my grandma would read it to me. Like I said it was a distant memory I had lost my grandma when I was around eight or nine but its one of those things you can never forget completely.

I figured if nothing else if she’s there tomorrow reading the same book I at least can have a reason yo approach her and ask about it. After that I thought maybe I would’ve still had that book, so I decided to go to the attic and grab some boxes of stuff from before I moved to the city. After two boxes of tacky holiday decorations the third one yielded some success. This had a bunch of miscellaneous mementos and a few high-school year books no wonder it was shoved so far back.

I didn’t find the book. But, I did find some old family photos and stuff maybe I can find a page or so dedicated to one of the reunions and see if I at least knock out that train of thought. The first few pages where of my parents wedding and the few ensuing years before the my birth. There wasn’t anything special about the photos. I figured I had to have been at least seven or eight if I have some memory of the reunion so I skipped forwards. Finally I found a section with pictures from there the only problem is there 3 pages full so I was gonna be there for awhile. I wasn’t it didn’t take long for her to catch my eye. When she did though the whole room started spinning it wasn’t just some distant relative it was my grandma. I knew that couldn’t be possible though she’s dead she had to be dead. It was a terrible time in my life after her death was when I really drew back from everyone only talking with family and very few close friends.

I knew I was wrong there’s no other explanation. But I couldn’t remember realizing that was a gut punch how much do you have to not care to not remember someone’s name. Especially a loved one what was wrong with me. I thought I was going to vomit so I through down the book and ran to the bathroom. I don’t know what it was but every time after that thinking of that lady made my stomach curl. I packed the box up as best I could but the last book caught my attention it was a yearbook from my sophomore year of high-school it was the best year I had of that four year hell and I decided maybe I could look back and reminisce a desperate attempt to distract myself but I would do anything at this point. It was nice flipping through the pages seeing old classmates crushes and bullies alike something about it was comforting well other than seeing my very much teen self that is. I flipped through the final pages, they usually filled these with clubs and pictures from events so I figured I’d have a little more to reminisce about.

The last page hit hard I flipped to it and it was like the air was sucked from me I could breath. Every time I tried it was like a mix of breathing and dry heaving. The last page was dedicated to Thomas, He was my best friend since probably first grade the reason why I hadn’t seen him in any of the pictures before was because he had died the summer before. That man I saw was Thomas I would’ve bet a million dollars on it, but I also knew that it wasn’t possible Thomas was dead just like my grandma the only difference here is I remembered his name.

I woke up the next morning on the couch with books scattered all around me I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I can only imagine it was a scramble to find any details I could about either of them. I reluctantly got up it was too late to shower. So just tossed on some clean clothes and bolted out the door. Even though I was pretty rocked I had chalked it all up to be one of those super surreal dreams and figured none of that was real. I wasn’t going to stop at the café today just because I didn’t want to see a random old lady and spiral of the ledge thinking it my grandma but after deliberations, I figured I wanted to see the barista again and might as well do so while getting something to combat the cold. It was relatively simple I ordered in my usual meek nature and went on my way no old lady in the corner and none one I recognized. I didn’t realize how easy it is to slip into madness when you think you see a pattern. I was actually feeling pretty good about it though it was nice to know that I kicked the crazy.

That was until I walked into the office and saw Thomas again. I thought if pivoting and turning right back through the door, but it was to late he had seen me already.

“Hey man how have you been I didn’t get to talk to you before you left yesterday”

“Oh, you know how it it’s Tommy just keeping my head down and getting the job done”

“Tommy?” “Who’s Tommy my name is… Frank”

“Oh yeah yeah sorry someone else was on my mind,”

“…” “No worries” “…” “Well I’ll let you get to work”

“Yea yea I’m on it”

After talking to “Frank” I knew there was something wrong that’s the only explanation. That was Tommy I was sure of it granted I was sure he was dead too but here we are. I decided to do some googling seeing if anyone else has experienced anything like this before. That didn’t help most of what it said was related to dementia which I figured I could rule out. I decided to google Tommy and see if there were anymore details on his death. There wasn’t anything about his death but I did find a news report from back home talking about a spree of grave robberies one of the graves was Tommy’s. That was the link they were both dead what if, I frantically searched for a list of all the robbed graves and I found that my grandma was on there too.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to working, not looking some random towns newspaper”

I nearly jumped out of skin I didn’t here him come up behind me, but I kept my composure and played along.

“Hey Tom… Frank oh my parents sent me this article this is actually from my hometown.”

“ Oh… is everything ok with your parents?”

“Yeah, they’re just nervous with the grave robberies going on, I told them they shouldn’t worry since they’ve stuck to graves the robbers are avoiding conflict.”

“Oh well we’re ahead of schedule so if you want to go spend some time with them you can take a long weekend”

“Oh… well… I don’t know it can be pretty busy on the way out thee with the leaves changing and everything”

After saying that Tommy leaned in real close and clamped a hand on my shoulder and whispered.

“I know your parents are dead, well… they were nonetheless I suggest you go home”

His gripped tightened I was worried he was going to break my collarbone.

“And trust me Digging only leads to a deeper grave, I would know, you should stop before you can’t climb out.”

He suddenly jumped back clasped his hands together

“Well done since you have your part of the project complete you can clock out early and begin your weekend.”

He glared at me the whole time I was grabbing all my stuff and even watched me as I left the office. So because I can’t imagine I have much longer before the come to patch the hole I’ve made in there operation I wanted to write this. Hopefully this reaches enough people. I don’t know what they are but if you ever see someone in passing and think you know them trust me you don’t, you may have known them, but they aren’t the same person anymore and they will do anything to keep it a secret.