Stranger

He paced back and forth in front of the bar patio. He wondered if people noticed him or if he stood still, if people would look right through him as though he didn’t even exist.

He saw her. He knew his moment was now, but to work up the courage was daunting. He thought he had found it in that bottle of wiskey he lifted from the liqorstore, but it had faded into more of a dizzy feeling now.

He knew the world was ending. His family had turned their back on him, his doctors tried to tell him he was crazy. But the voices he heard, he knew, weren’t just voices. They had been with him all his life. Through everything. They were the only real thing he knew. The one time he tried taking everyone’s advice, the voices had stopped, but he had never felt so lonely.

Someone pushed by him on the sidewalk, knocking him into the railing around the patio. She looked up, but looked past him. She was brilliant. She was beautiful. Her mother was right for keeping her away from him.

Before he knew what was happening he was in front of her table. Her friend looked up, startled. “Hi, may I sit with you while I wait for my brother to eat food?”. She finally looked up, so calm, so sure “No. You can’t”. Her friend’s eyes looked like they were about to fall out of her head. “Sorry” I heard myself saying as I backed out of the restaurant, bumping into a few annoyed patrons along the way.

I guess the world would end without me telling her I was her father. I wonder if she saw it, we have the same freckles. I guess all I can do now is head home and wait. I know she will be okay though, I saw it in her eyes, no hell fire could break her. She would be one of the survivors.