It was a car lot, or at least there were a bunch of cars there and the guy seemed to go there enough so that you could see that it was probably his job to go to the car lot. But after he would walk from his little crummy apartment across the street to the ol’ lot he would kind of disappear for a really long time. Not really sure what he was doin’ but maybe it was important? Like he was crunching numbers which was important to the success of the lot, although he didn’t really strike me as an accountant type. The building on the lot was tiny, the size of a play house, probably not even room for two people. So, what was he doing in there all the time? Maybe he was sleeping but why would he go there just to sleep? Couldn’t he just stay home and like, sleep on his couch? From time to time I could catch him peeking out the window of the shed, fingers on a tiny windowsill and his eyes taking a glance outside, then back out of view quick-quick. Why would he do that? Was he checking for customers? Once I saw him walk to the shed carrying a little matchbox-type car so maybe he played with that a little bit that day.

This went on for several weeks although without regularity. I tried to figure out some kind of a schedule for the guy but he seemed to just show up at random days and hours, never bringing anything that looked like lunch or a thermos full of coffee or soup or some such and I never saw him carry anything away either. This got to be too much for me. I wonder if this is something that even matters enough for me to check on, like, should I follow him? Should I peek in the shed? I don’t know, what if it’s just something stupid, like he just goes in there to read or something? Getting’ away from his crazy girlfriend, or it’s some kind of a hobby that he’s invented himself and no one else can stand how boring it is like he paints little army men to look like princesses or puts googly-eyes on toy trains and drives them around in a circle while laughing the whole time like they were little rectangular people on tracks.

I don’t know. Sometimes I do things when they don’t even need to be done so I want to take my time with this one because I feel like I need to know, but I don’t really. It’s not like I’m suspicious and think there’s a half-eaten kid in there or some kind of secret door that leads under the lot..., it’s probably not that last one right? Probably would be pretty hard to dig out an entire underground cavern under a used car lot... I think? I don’t really have a frame of reference for it. I ain’t ever had a job that had me digging big holes so maybe it’s actually really easy? Or maybe... maybe there’s already some kind of cave under the whole place like some kind of journey to the center of the Earth type shit going on and he plopped the tiny shed on top of the entrance hole and bought up a bunch of shit cars to use as cover so he could work on looking for some kinds of treasure. There sure weren’t any car sales since I’ve been watching. Then something a little different happened. Could be I just missed it all those other times because I haven’t been paying as much attention, and now, I’m paying VERY much more attention, pretty much the most attention there is. I haven’t really been doing much of anything else to be honest, but, y’know, what’s the difference between this and like, shopping at Walmart and going to work and all the rest? I think this is a fine use of my time.

He had been inside the shed again all day and it was starting to get a little dark. The door to the shed opens and the guy steps out like he does, looks all around for a while then starts to walk toward his lil’ apartment across the street and probably his eyes still needed to adjust to the dark from being inside a little shed with lights in it. He took a step on the road to cross when a piece of shit Oldsmobile blasted down the street and came roughly one inch from plowing him into the concrete. I stood up from my watchin’ chair as I was pretty sure I was about to see this guy get split open, but he managed to hop backward onto the sidewalk as the car careened away in a cloud of brown belching smoke.

Hot dog but that was exciting. My eyes were shining with it.

The thing that I had missed the whole time was as the murder car blasted by, the guy, the shed guy, he opened his mouth to yell and while I couldn’t hear what he said or even if a noise came out (I don’t know because I’m behind the glass) but he opened his mouth to shout and I caught a pretty good peek inside. Inside his mouth that is and it was all... smooth? Like, no teeth, no tongue and it didn’t even look like he had a pipe-hole where all the food goes down and sometimes comes out and also where the wind comes in and out. Fuck, I don’t know what it’s called, the pipe-hole. You know what I mean. It was like a smooth skin cave that just ended. Is that something that happens to people? Maybe it is and I haven’t really gotten a good look at everyone’s open mouths, but I know that’s not what my mouth looks like. My mouth has stuff in it and I can put stuff in it to make it disappear just like *that*. I can make a chicken dinner go down in pretty much a good short while so it must be hard for him to eat chicken or eggs or the like. Ice-cream. Juice. Tobacco smoke. Harmonica sounds. I need to ponder on this some.

You think he can whistle with that skin cave? He talk at all or you think he nods at people until they get the idea he don’t talk so good or no one talks to him at all. What if he uses it to... carry things? Kind of like a squirrel or a human change purse. Was he born that way? Is he even a person? By god I’m even more interested now. Now I barely eat and my tail bone is all numb from sitting in my chair for so long and Jesus Christ what if he comes to the shed at night and I miss something else? He got like a smooth skin cavehole of a mouth and what else he got? Come to think of it, all I’ve ever seen him do is go from his shit apartment and back and forth to the shed, never stopping at the Savers around the corner for some shitty cheap food in cans and crinkly bags, never even seen him go to the laundromat or carry anything or wear anything besides a flannel pillow tick torn up coat, busted ass brown boots and some navy colored slacks that were starting to take on a tree pitch black luster. I wish I never got started on this. I’m in a bit of trouble seeing as how I do even less than he does on account of how all I do anymore is sit in this here watching chair behind my glass and see what he’s up to. Do I really need to know? I stopped going to work because it was interfering with my watchin’ time. I’m two months late on my rent and I mostly shat and piss into this family sized mayo jar next to the window and only dash away to empty it when I know I ain’t about to miss something. I kind of sleep sometimes I think. Got the tube on in the corner and I zone out and see things with my eyes open like you do. The building turns into a big square robot and you blink and it goes back to being a building, all the usual stuff people see I expect. Should I be doing this? I don’t know, but I also wonder, should HE be doing what he’s doing? That I also don’t know, but what else should I be doing? What else should HE be doing? Just this I expect. I expect this here is the right thing for both of us to be doing. I nod a little around 2am and see the leafy bush outside my window takes on a human face and I get a little startled but it’s just a few leaves that look a bit like eyes and the wind picks up like it does and the face goes away like it should. I hear the birds start up early. I know that because the workout show with the spandex people starts up on the tube in the early hours and I feel a little good because I know the sun comes up pretty soon so I don’t see quite as much stuff in the bushes and the buildings, but it also means I need to start paying even more attention, so I cross the room and twist the off knob until the tube snaps off and I can pay even closer attention... and here he comes! Hot fuckin’ dog! earlier by far! I’m fuckin’ jazzed because I was starting to lose it a bit there. But it was worth it! I throw off the thin blanket wrapped around my shoulders and take up my position in the watchin’ chair and I hunch over for the real show.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

There he goes all right, right on across the street. Hunched over with his hands in his pockets because it’s pretty chilly this early and I’m glad I’m not out there right now although I should be out there, it’ll be faster that way, y’know, faster to figure out things. But I’m not ready for that yet. Could be I’m ok with just sitting inside here with the guessing and pondering although the thought of going outside kind of had me sweating, come to think of it. It would probably be fine and all but I feel more comfortable in here just now. Outside, there ain’t no walls. I mean, there's walls but not enough or close enough together for me. Fuck it, that sounds weird. I’ll go outside today. I sound crazy. Not Super Crazy, but. I’ll go outside. Do I need to pack a lunch? Yes, a lunch. I need to go outside and I may be gone for a while so I’ll need to pack a lunch. I fiddle around inside the fridge and the bright light illuminates the kitchen on account of it’s still dark and I grab a few things like a half a jug of milk and a pack of cheese. Leaving the door to the fridge open, I poke around the kitchen and take a few cans of stuff and also a can opener and I stuff them all inside a bag I saved when I went shopping last at the Savers and it don't look too great but I’m packing a lunch and that's the point. You put some edible things together and you bring them with you somewhere. Am I thinking about this too much? I don’t know, this is a reasonable lunch to pack, right? It has a drink and some stuff to eat also so I’m pretty satisfied.

I take the lunch bag over to my sittin’ chair and set it down so I can rest a little, and while I’m resting, I watch the shed too because it’s right there and I don’t need to go to too much bother just to sit and watch it while I rest, right? I guess I can sit on the couch and stare at the wall or turn the tube back on but this is good too.

There he is again! He popped out just now and peeked around before going back inside. 'Popped out and back in' I write in my notebook. The notebook for keepin’ score and all that and I’m pretty proud of it. Got dates and numbers and times and ALL that good stuff. If I can find a computer camera what takes pictures without the need for films, I can start up a picture album with him in it. Fuckin’-A but won’t that be a great thing to have around! I’m so excited thinking about it that I hop out of my chair and start pacing around the place, slapping the wall from time to time, real excited like and rubbing my hands together, mostly because I’m happy, but also because my hands are cold so that’s fuckin’ great too because killin’ two birds at the same time is what the fuck I’m ALLL about. Fuck yeah! I’m pacing and thinking about all the things I’ll be able to do with one of those computin’ cameras and I lose track of the ol’ time for a bit like what happens to everyone because when I look outside, the sun is already starting to go down. How long I been pacing in here? I look around and see the lunch I packed has been eaten all up and the empty cans are under my chair and the can opener has some bean juice on it and for the life of me I can’t remember doing that. I guess it was me. Who else would it be?

I check my breath for a cheese smell or a hot milk smell and I kind of smell it and also I don’t. I get real tired all of a sudden and I drop my arms to my sides and hunch my shoulders and just stare into space in the general direction of the lookin’ window and my eyes do that thing where they start to see shapes and faces in the bushes outside and I’m ok with that by now, and I laugh a little bit because one of the faces looks like the guy I been watching in the shed. I blink and the faces go away like they do except for his face. I expect that I can’t blink it away on account of I see him so much. Maybe it’s always on my mind or something so I shake my head to get the cobwebs out. I still see his face though, close to the glass but not moving at all because it’s just leaves and twigs and the like... maybe a candy wrapper... the face blinks and moves its eyes toward me and I back up fast into the counter and fall down over a stool. I get up fastfastfast to look back out the window but the face isn’t there. Of course it isn’t there. It never was. Why would it be. I’m just getting a little wild. I will admit what with the not really leaving this place ever and what with the not really sleeping and... I run to the window and look at the shed and pray oh fuckin’ lordy that he’s in there because now I feel like I just lost sight of a big spider and it could pop out of anywhere now. Wake up with that leggy bastard on your face in the night with one leg in your mouth or something! I run to check the door. Double check the door! Locked! Double locked! Triple locked! I peep through the peephole. Empty! I listen with a cup pushed up against the door. No rustles! I sprint to the window and swoosh the curtains closed and run around turning off the lights. Then I run to my room and close the door and push my dresser in front of it and I dive into bed and cover myself and I cry. I don’t know but I do remember thinking that I could hear something walking around outside my bedroom but that’s probably not real. I ain’t been sleepin’ too good and I seen a lot of things that probably aren’t real. Like the faces in the bushes and like the guy’s face in the bush that blinked and didn't go away fast like normal. Probably I’m just getting slightly worse.

My thoughts spiral and I think I’m sleeping but I can’t rightly know on account of how it feels just like I’m laying here normal but the time speeds up. Can you dream that you’re trying to sleep but you're already sleeping? How do you wake up? How do you know if you’re really awake? Am I sleeping right now? I feel like I’m lying in bed trying to sleep but what if I’m... I open my eyes and I see I’m sitting in the chair watching the shed. Like I been there the whole time. I look around and see the lunch I packed and the milk has sweat on it like it ain’t been out too long and I see the sun is only halfway up the sky so is this tomorrow now or yesterday? I stand up fast and the chair knocks against the backs of my knees and falls over and I hustle to check out my bedroom and I look inside and see it’s still dusty on account of I don’t have much use for it lately with all the watchin’ I been doing and I run back out to check on the shed and I shake my head hard now and rub my eyes with both hands because now the shed is gone, and I turn around and look and now it’s inside my fucking’ living room and I get goosebumps all over because I don’t know what the fuck is going on and I don’t want that horrible fuckin’ shed inside my house and I see the black static around my sight and I smell burning toast and I wake up on the floor in the kitchen. The shed is gone and I’m ok, just linoleum marks on my face. I pat myself and wipe away some sweat and everything is fine. Just fine.