I just stared at him as I watch a serpentine smile curve his cruel, thin lips. The words put a freeze on my hearbeats, in my guts, in my soul. It's as if the chilled breeze that blew past his frame passed through me and clutched my spine. I didn't know how many moments passed before he tipped his hat a little towards me and turned his back.

I didn't stay to watch his retreating steps fade from my line of sight but  found the knob of the door and shut it. The instant the wood slammed against the jamb, it's as if something clicked in my mind and the strength wooshed from my knees. I crumpled like a cheap plastic toy after being crushed by a giant fist which had been holding it upright. The silence and solitude of the room after he left grated on my nerves and sanity. I wanted to scream the lingering aura of his presence away from my house, from my life, from my mind.

Perhaps more than twenty minutes had passed before I got the brilliant idea to stand up and get on with my life, already hearing the familiar rationalizations in my mind. You're just burnt-out. C'mon, everybody needs a little fresh air, and you forgot to get some when you went out to buy the frozen pizzas. That's when people start viewing visitors as something more than they really are-ordinary and utterly useless to help relieve the pain inside.

My numb lips curved a smile of their own, though this one was leaden with weariness. At the same time I was reasoning with myself another voice spoke, this one more primitive and blunt.

Something's not right. Something wrong is happening here, or going to happen. Something worth remembering...soon.