Random stories

I thumbed the pill bottle on the table, and rolled it until the label faced upwards. "ANTI-PSYCHOTIC 1 PILL DAILY WITH FOOD" glared back at me, in a cold and unforgiving black and white font. The bottle remained full, despite the bottle being almost a week old. Every day, I ordered the same thing from this cafe, a refill coffee and a chicken supreme, and let my food go cold while I stared at the bottle. Because this bottle promised some kind of escape.

I could feel it glaring at me. I knew that if I looked ahead of me, or in the reflection of the cutlery, or in the mirror at the back of the coffee shop, I would see it. Haunting, pale and ceaselessly grinning. The skin around its mouth tight and creased. Some days I would stare at it for hours, while other locals in the cafe would grow more and more uncomfortable at the strange man with cold food, glaring tearfully into the middle distance.

And the more I stared at it, the more I felt an intense fear grow inside of me, until it threatened to claw its way through my chest and bare all of my darkest secrets to the strangers in this nondescript cafe. So I stopped, and instead I stared at the 50mg pills that a doctor had prescribed for me a week ago.

I hadn't taken them. There was an aura of hatred around the bottle, as if the forces that had concocted them were more malevolent than whatever had sent me my incessant, smiling demon. Some ancient part of my instinct told me not to touch them, that a truth was hidden behind the tormented eyes of my silent companion, but in the throes of my anguish I took 3.

Weeks passed this way. The demon would not disappear, but the pills would blur everything, so that the grin would smear its way across my vision into an amorphous cloud of yellowing teeth, and I could no longer make out the shapes that haunted my waking hours. I could function, but barely. It was a kind of half existence, that offered an escape from the torment, but at the cost of everything else. A bleach for my sorrows.

Until I saw another blur, hovering its way at the edges of my eyesight. It moved like the ghost that haunted me, without steps, floating over tables and resting on window ledges. I knew something had changed, because I saw the two blurs sit down at the table together. In that moment, I knew that there was something here I needed to see through.

I rested my head on the table and closed my eyes, willing myself to overcome the pills. If, just for a moment, I could see and think clearly, I could find out what was so significant about a young woman, eating lunch with her ethereal demon.

When I opened them again, the cafe was empty. I knew instantly that I had slept, and the staff, having seen me wandering in a daze for weeks, had elected to leave me alone. All that remained were a few of the young workers, cleaning tables. The pills had worn off, meaning I had been asleep for hours. And then I heard her voice.

"They won't help, you know". I jumped in my chair, and looked at her. She smiled at me, a smile without pity or malice, it was a thin but friendly and it spoke of a burden shared and suddenly halved. "These things, they're not from here, so nothing from here will get rid of them". I didn't say anything, I just looked to her side and saw that her demon was much like mine. Only hers didn't grin, its teeth did not show, and instead it merely looked at me, curious, inquisitive. I could see behind its eyes that the torment was gone. And there were crumbs on its shirt collar. I realised what I had seen before. They had sat down to eat together.

I stared back at the young woman, and she fixed me with a look that preempted my question. She placed a hand on my shoulder. "They're not here to haunt you. They need your help."

I looked back at my demon, and for the first time, behind the crimson red pupils and bloodshot eyes, through the taut skin around its mouth and the strained neck muscles from its stretched face, I glimpsed a momentary light that shone for only a moment. I recognised that light, and knew in that moment what I needed to do. I shuffled up on the bench and made space for the demon, who slowly, cautiously, floated over and took his seat next to me. And the corners of his smile twitched.

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Submitted by ChristopherCooney on Sat, Nov 26, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

The . . . creature . . . has been following you for weeks now, but nobody else can see it. It just sits there, staring, grinning. Then one day you look across the coffee shop and see a young woman with another one right behind her. Your eyes meet . . .