This isn’t actually my story. It was related to me, a while ago, by an elderly gentleman that frequented a convenience store I worked at. I think back to that night where I followed him to the junkyard, and my hair still stands, along with that quiver of gooseflesh that has nothing to do with the temperature. I worked in a relatively quiet part of the city, out on the edge, and we had little to fear from crime. The job didn’t pay well, but what little I got helped to pay some of the bills for college and the nightly customers were few and far between – giving me more than enough time to do some reading or languish…

Do you ever watch other people in the subway? It’s so strange to have to ignore someone who’s right up there in your face. A can of sardines springs to mind, except passengers aren’t joined by a bond of thick oil or brine. Instead, they’re stewing in a miasma of sweat, cologne and annoyance. Everybody absorbed in their own little worlds, warm little cocoons. There, whizzing through the bowels of the city at a brisk clip, you’ll find people reading books, newspapers. Maybe on a Playstation Portable. Maybe on a smartphone. Except me. I’ll always be looking through the thick glass windows at the flickering blackness just beyond. Sometimes, late at night, I hope I’ll get on the same train…

Owen was my pal. Maybe the best one, if I had to rank them. One of the good guys. He didn’t have many friends. We met in high school, drawn together by a mutual love in turn based strategy games. Master of Orion, Heroes of Might and Magic. Owen was an absolute beast at those games. He had a queer talent for memorizing patterns, statistics and maps. He’d devour games like a man possessed, teasing out exploits and secrets while the rest of us were cursing and swearing at the cheating, conniving tactics of our computerized opponent. Even five years out of college, Owen remained thin as a rake, his eyes looking perpetually surprised through thick spectacles. Life happened to…

The doctor told me it was a figment of my imagination. A hallucination. A phantom limb. Cut off, but the ghost of a feeling remains. The doctor tutted and prescribed me a different pill. I’ve lost count of how many pills I’ve tried. There was the yellow one. And the red and white capsule. And the green one. They have succeeded in giving me incontinence, nausea and hair loss. But they haven’t taken my girl away. My doctor told me to talk about it. Tell people. Who the hell am I supposed to tell something like this? My last friends abandoned me when Sylvia left. It’s late here.. Where to start, when there is so much to tell? At the…