Stanley Perton is fifty-five years old though his slender figure with a light tan and smooth face beg to differ. His dark colored, plaid business suit and briefcase labels him a detective. His body flows at the same rhythm as the train slowing to a stop. His eyes of the colors brown, hazel, blue, and green striped vertically, in that order, dazes off into the lively green trees passing at 30mph outside the window. This attracts the most quiet person sitting across from him. Overhead lights blink on and off as the doors open. Stanley jogs out the el train with no relative expression but a poker face. He is followed by the person who examined his strange fashion, remaining thirty feet behind him. He rises out of the station and crosses 24th and Park avenue walking downtown. It almost seems like daylight with the city lights blending with a not so much brighter fingernail moon.
Stanley can just about see an un-invited presence of a mysterious shadow lurking against the brick buildings behind his own shadow. He spins around innocently, as if he suspects nothing, but vigorously tries to focus on a dark figure as his eyes pass it with a blur. The dark figure was just enough for Stanley to understand he is being followed, but carries on his way like he saw nothing, that this little act was merely a joyous one with no intention.
He finally arrives at his gothic apartment. The dim light glows through the door and the two windows. This gives Stanley an uncomfortable feeling that there may be someone inside. There are two lion heads sculpted out of an odd stone that looks like a marble concrete attached to each side of the front door, with dying ferns growing out of cracks in the strange heads. Some blow off in the high winds. It’s not a big house, nor is it small. Maybe three, fair sized rooms on the bottom floor, and two bedrooms upstairs. The hallway leading out of the two upstairs rooms mark the end of his property and leads to another old, white, cracked wooden door. Stanley reaches towards the knob, but hesitates, and looks behind him with an angry expression. Nothing, no un-invited person standing in one place, no unknown shadows, just the common people and overpopulated city. He sighs, and continues with the door knob.
As he walks inside, light overwhelms the room in too short of a time like someone had turned on an extremely bright lamp. In sudden reaction, his right hand hovers just above his eye brow, cupped in shape. He motions his eyes towards the bright lights original birthplace, and can barely make out a person sitting with their hands on their lap behind an eye-tearing lamp.
Fear ran through his mind but he felt he should remain calm. He got ready to pull a small pistol from the inside pocket of his coat, waiting to know whether or not he is in danger.
“Would you mind turning off that lamp?” Stanley asks. He paused, looking down, and just before he could continue speaking the unknown person spoke.
“Sorry, sir.” The voice reveals it’s a woman, her hand turns the switch, and amid the darkness, his eyes are relieved.
His hand goes down and he continues talking, “Who are you? What, wait, how the hell did you get in my house?”
“Your door was open.”
“That gives you no right to enter.” He walks into the room she is in, and sits down on a chair across from her. Before she can respond he speaks again. “Who are you?”
“The names Dr. Julia Howin…” She is interrupted briefly by Stanley.
“A doctor, eh? Why would one of your kind do something dirty like entering, uninvited, into somebody’s house?”
“I’ve been watching you, on the train, I noticed your eyes, something I have never seen before. The way you didn’t have any expression on your face as you looked beyond everyone, just staring out the window the entire time on the train. I wish to study you a little, but don’t be alarmed; I am a psychologist. And you don’t need to pay me because you didn’t come to me, I came to you for my own interest.”
“So that was you, the person following me?”
“I didn’t know you were aware, I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience I may have caused.”
“How did you get in front of me and to my house first without me noticing?”
“After you did a little dance, I turned into an ally and jogged to the back door of your apartment.”
“How did you know where I lived?”
“Your briefcase - it had your address on the identification card hanging from the handle.” She reached into her trench coat for a small pack of cigarettes, then said, “I assume you are the detective, Stanley Perton?”
She holds the pack of cigarettes, harmlessly biting on one of the sticks in order to remove it from the pack.
“Can you please not…” But as her smooth, peachy hand lights the cigarette, something about it hypnotizes Stanley and his mind escapes, briefly, from reality. His sight is overwhelmed by a spiraling blur. His face loses expression, the hazel in his eyes start to glow like a possessed cat looking to the side.
Author notes
Stanley Perton has lived a most unusual childhood. Taking a job as a detective, the only mystery that ever seems to cross his path is his own life. Paranoia and depression is what determines his personality, up until he discovers the greatest unknown: The meaning of his existance. Usually, nobody can determine this..But his father, even after his death, made sure Stanley remained on his planned path.
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