Familiar eyes

Familiar eyes

My eyes flicker open reluctantly. I reach across to my bedside dresser and fumble with the alarm switch; it’s flimsy, and it takes a few seconds before the ringing finally dies. I collapse backward in frustration. Now that I’ve been awake for a minute or so, my body refuses to go back to sleep. With a sigh, I stand and trudge to the curtains, remembering that I’d read somewhere natural light was supposed to be good for the mind. The sunlight slipping through the fabric is thin and sickly, it immediately gives me a headache, casting a pale, watery glow across the room that makes everything seem different, more distinctive.

Now that I’m stood up, my gaze falls on a pack of cigarettes laying on the floor, I ramble towards before picking it up and giving it a shake, it was empty, and so was fridge so breakfast would have to be skipped today. I have faced quite the criticism for my habits, smoking, drinking, and getting high but I have come to accept that the addiction is a part of me, I can go short periods without it but eventually the bird must return to the nest. Subconsciously, I stroke the underside of my chin, feeling the scratch of stubble. Tomorrow I will shave.

I move toward the kitchen with a kind of practiced detachment. Every step is familiar—the scrape of the stool on the tile, the soft click of the cupboard doors, the hiss of the kettle as I fill it with water. I’ve done this a thousand times, or at least it feels that way, like the motions have been carved into muscle memory like I’m just skin stretched over routine. My fingers brush the same chipped mug, the one with the thin crack along its rim, and I bring it to my lips without thinking.

The first sip burns the roof of my mouth, at least the pain felt real. I set the mug back down on its faint ring on the counter- the same faint ring is made every morning, a ghostly brown circle on cheap laminate. My eyes linger on it, far too long though as when I look up at the clock it has passed 20 minutes, and the time is 7: 32 it’s always 7:32 when I look at it. I wait, for the clock to tick forward but it doesn’t. Ironically, I blink, and it is 7:33. I let out a dry laugh, I don’t know why.

I down the last of the coffee in one swallow. It’s bitter, cold at the bottom, and leaves a trace on my tongue. I rinse the mug under the tap, watching the water swirl away, then set it upside down in the rack, positioning it exactly where I took it from.

The bedroom feels smaller when I step back in, the air stale despite the opened window. My shirt is folded a on the chair by the bed. I don’t remember putting it there last night, but then again, I must have. I button it slowly, fingers dragging through each action like they’re reluctant to move. My tie is crumpled on the floor. I knot it without looking in the mirror, I know that I would be disgusted with myself if I did, so instead I jam my feet into my shoes.

Keys. Wallet. Phone. I pat each pocket in order, the ritual automatic, unconscious. My hand lingers on the door handle for a moment. But then the thought of being late snaps back into my mind.

The hallway outside smells chemically of disinfectant and bleach. I lock up behind me and head down the stairs. My footsteps echo loud, like the building’s empty, though I can hear the distant hum of TVs behind closed doors.

By the time I step out into the street, the thin morning light has sharpened into something harsher. It stings my eyes. I restlessly rummage through my briefcase, finding at last, a much needed pack of cigarettes, light one and start pacing towards my car.

I inhale, flicking ash into the gutter, and glance down the street out of habit. Same cracked pavement, same dented cars lined along the curb. The air smells faintly of diesel and damp concrete, but there’s something else, something I can’t place.

Halfway down the block, a figure stands by the lamppost. They’re still, like they’re part of the scenery. Hood up. Face shadowed. Watching.

I look away too quickly, my chest tightening. Probably just some neighbour waiting for a ride. Probably nothing.

I climb into my car, slamming the door primarily in frustration however it was a comfort to hear something other than silence.

It’s fine. I’m fine.

I start the engine.

Pulling into the main road I felt a sense of unfamiliarity, buildings I had passed hundreds of times felt wrong in their angles, their windows glaring back at me like eyes. I shook it off, muttering something about how I needed more sleep, less nicotine, and something or the other.

Now I found myself stuck in the middle of a traffic jam, it was nothing abnormal. My hands absent of duty, tapped against the wheel in a rhythm.

Then a tap on the window.

I jerked back, my heart jumping into my throat. A woman stood there, she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt both torn and covered in grime. Her hair hung in matted strands around her face, and her face was streaked with dry blood. My first glance told me she was homeless, a beggar but there was something about her- something fractured in the way she held herself, like her soul had already departed. Her eyes locked on mine, wide and unblinking.

“Do you remember me?” She asked her voice raw and cold, her face blank of emotion.

My fingers froze around the steering wheel, the cigarette burning down between them until the ash dropped into my lap. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Something about the way she said it—like a statement, not a question—cut through me.

I told myself it was a trick of exhaustion, a stranger in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the thought collapsed under its own weight. I didn’t know her. I couldn’t know her. Still, her words sat heavy in my skull.

When I blinked, she was gone. The street stretched out empty, the morning as ordinary as it had always been. A delivery van passed at the end of the road, its driver oblivious. I looked again at the spot where she’d stood, as if sheer willpower could bring her back. Nothing.

I rested my forehead against the steering wheel, trying to steady my breathing. My mind replayed her face in flashes—the dirt, the blood, the eyes. Too real to be a hallucination. Too detailed to be imagined.

By the time I drove to work, the morning had slipped into a dull routine haze. My colleagues greeted me in their usual way, a blur of nods and murmurs, none of it quite reaching my ears. I kept expecting to see her again, a flicker in the corner of my vision, someone standing at the end of the corridor. I didn’t. But her voice wouldn’t leave me.

"Don’t you remember me?"

I avoided mirrors all day, even the reflection in the office window. I lit cigarette after cigarette on my break, ignoring the looks from the others. Every breath infiltrated filled my lungs with something sharp enough to ground me, but it never lasted.

By the time I left the building, the sky was the colour of a bruised yellow. My car waited where I’d left it, its windows catching the last scraps of daylight. I unlocked it, slid inside, and sat for a while, unwilling to start the engine. The silence wrapped itself around me.

Then I saw her again. Not in the distance, not in a reflection—right there in front of the car. She stood in the middle of the road, her clothes hanging in tatters, her skin pale beneath the grime. Her eyes hadn’t changed.

This time, her lips didn’t move.

But I heard it all the same, so loud, that I felt like the words being funnelled directly into my skull. My chest tightened, every muscle tensing. The cigarette between my fingers trembled. I dropped it, crushed it into the mat beneath my feet, and gripped the wheel hard enough that the skin of my knuckles turned white.

She stood there, unwavering. Her head tilted, her shoulders slack, her face contorted into something both pleading and accusing. My headlights glared over her, cutting sharp shadows across her frame.

"Don’t you remember me?"

Again. The second time was louder, clearer, like an echo ricocheting through my ribcage. I flinched. My instinct was to blink, to look away, but the thought of not seeing her terrified me more.

"Don’t you remember me?"A third time.

I clenched my jaw, knowing that I had made a decision that would forever haunt me and before I knew it, my foot slammed on the accelerator.

And then it all came rushing back to me!

By Tejas Gupta