Night

Darkness seeped down onto the sun, leaving only small orbs of light from the street lamps to light his way. His footsteps sounded hollow as they hit the pavement in a metronome-like rhythm. He ran, not because he wanted to, but because he was afraid to stop. He wore a black oversized t-shirt that billowed as he ran, paired with jeans and ratty old tennis shoes. His already thin figure was stretched by the lamp light on the ground next to him. No matter how he tried he could not out run the slim giant of his own shadow.

Caught up in beating his own shadow, of course he wouldn’t notice someone else’s. It trailed behind him, silent like a ghost of unknown intentions. He ran under those street lights until his legs collapsed beneath him and he fell slowly to the ground. His shadow became his pillow as he lay there trying to catch his breath and his mind. The other shadow mingles with the darkness, watching and waiting impatiently.

The guile of exhaustion clears his head and allows him the sweet escape of unconsciousness. The shadow wisps out of the darkness and casts itself across his face. This shadow’s owner crouches to it’s knees and strokes the side of his face with a gentle hand.

“I know you.” She says before leaning down and letting her hair and lips brush his.

Morning

He wakes with his cheek pressed against the pavement and the sun creeping stealthily up the horizon. He looks around at where he is and stands up groggily. He is half way home before he realizes he has been clutching something in his hand. It’s a folded sheet of paper. He stares at it wonderingly before opening it. On it written in pencil is a name and number and then down at he bottom of the page in letters so smile that he almost didn’t notice were the words,
“I know you.”

For some reason, his whole body tingled at those words, especially his lips… he started dialing the number on his cell phone.