Similarities

He made me come to work today, but it wasn't at all what I was expecting.

I was sitting by an empty Christmas tree when my phone rang, and he told me to come down to the station. "There's something you need to know." Normally, I would have cussed him out there and then and then hung up on him, but this time was different. "There's something you need to know" isn't what a man would say if he wanted you to work on your day off. If it was a lie, it would have been a bit more extravagant.

So I went down to the station. Amazingly enough, his was the only car in the parking lot. I mean, yeah, it's Christmas, but we're the police. Crime waits for no man, not even the fat and jolly kind. First thing I did when I saw him was ask why no one was in today.

"All units are covering a Christmas fire downtown."

Made sense, I suppose. Next question was the important one, what did I need to know? It prompted a peculiar response out of his person; he started hacking an awful one right there on the spot. I was sure his eyeballs were going to pop out of his skull, and I almost wanted to make them, myself. But my grudge against that asshole had to wait; I was more curious than angry.

His cough calmed after quite a killer; he was out of breath afterwards. He looked at me, tears in his eyes presumably from the throat problem, and told me we were after the same thing.

I'll tell you right now that the first thing I thought was Sex? Is this guy seriously going to say "Sex?" I had my baton ready, but when he pulled out a bottle of pills that were Ibuprofen and not Viagra, I eased myself.

He took his pills as I just sat there, awkwardly. His office didn't smell like the cigar and stained Playboy magazines it usually did. Today, it smelled like the forest. And death.

He really took his time with this next part, taking caution to take deep breaths after every sentence, making sure to make every syllable count.

"I got your counselor to give me your blog address. I wasn't expecting much good; I admit I was a little hoping you'd post some pictures of yourself in that nightie of yours that exposes a little too much." I didn't want to ask any questions; I wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face. But then he did something that made me uneasy for different reasons.

He turned around to look out the window behind him. He let his eyes wander everywhere except at my breasts. He was paranoid. That man is never paranoid, not like that. I may hate him and think he's a disgusting piece of trash, but he's a smart enough cop to know to never show your fear. The fact that he was openly afraid of something made me reconsider everything about my situation.

"I saw your first post. I read what happened to you." He looked over me at the door behind us. Sweat dropped down his face. "We're both after the same thing. The thing that we can no longer think of as a man."

I honestly had no idea what to think about this. I wanted to hear more, so I asked what happened to him.

"Five years ago, my family was murdered in a..." His face contorted in a look of desperate exasperation, like a man pleading sanity. "..the official report called it a 'freak accident.' It was a murder. They were found dead in the woods. Banna.. my wife.. was found with all her organs in plastic bags. Gary and Jeffrey, my children, were not found with her. At least, not in the same area."

I began to get goosebumps. I suspected and fully expected what he was going to say. I was right.

"They were found up in a faraway tree along with a group of other children, all neatly placed in some sick act of.. as you put it, ritualistic sacrifice."

I suddenly figured out the rest of his story without him even having to say it. Still, I listened, though by this point it felt more like someone telling you an old story you know too well.

"No culprit was ever found, no hint of a culprit was ever found. No witnesses. No nothing. I had no idea what to do about this, so I became a cop. I wanted to track down the bastard responsible for this. I wanted to find the sorry excuse for human life that resulted in too many nightmares."

And then I wanted to scream, I wanted to run, I wanted to grab him and take him far away, but above all else, I just wanted to wake up. I wanted none of this to ever be happening.

Because the scariest thing is not that I knew exactly what he was talking about, the scariest thing is not that I fully understood exactly why he became the type of man I look down upon today, the scariest thing is not even that there was now a man standing outside his window, looking in on us.

The scariest thing was that my boss stopped looking.


I sat, frozen with fear, goosebumps all over, eyes darting between the man seated in front of me and the tall man standing outside the window. I wanted to know if the man outside was wearing a business suit, but I couldn't tell from either the distance or my own inner panic.

My boss continued speaking, but I couldn't figure out what he was saying. I only wondered if he knew.


It felt like hours passed in this frozen state. I heard my boss wrap up his monologue with a nervous laughter and a mention that the suited man in the station yesterday reminded him of all this, prompting him to talk to me.

I looked back outside the window, and no one was there except the trees.

I laughed loudly, almost fakely. I caught myself and told him "It's okay, thank you for sharing that secret with me." And then I excused myself and left. As soon as I was out the door, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me to my car, where I drove straight home and locked my doors.

And shut my blinds.