His Gaze Still Fixed by Matthew Walton
6:00 am:
Nicol Daret’s day started like any other. She was up before the sun, laced up her joggers and was out the door for her morning run. To her it was not just exercise but a form of meditation. The town was peaceful at that hour, when the sun and moon passed each other at the changing of the guard. With no one else about, the town belonged to her and her alone. This morning however, she found she was not alone. Running through the park, her favorite part of this daily ritual, she came across a man sitting on the singular stone bench at its center. She tried her best to not let the moment ruin her run by simply smiling, wishing him a good morning and continuing on her way.
He did not respond in kind.
He did not smile and nod.
He did not even look her way.
He just remained, ever gazing in the direction of the now ghostly moon.
This gave her pause, bringing her morning ritual to an abrupt end.
“Sir?” she approached him slowly, “are you okay?”
Still, his gaze remained glued on the horizon, unfazed by Nicol’s presence.
The whole moment made her feel uneasy and sent a chill slithering down her spine. It was unnatural how his body could be still as stone, almost statuesque, but she still had the sense that he was fully aware of everything going on around him. Before removing herself from the situation she held her phone under his nostrils to tell if he was at least breathing. At the sight of a fog gently spreading across the tempered glass, she felt she had done her diligence and left. Too afraid to even look back, she let herself leave the park and continue on her morning run.
10:00am:
Dan Pilson entered the park mid morning, pushing his son in a stroller. The sun had finally broken through the clouds after 3 days of persistent rain. As he turned the corner he saw a man sitting on the park bench, at least he thought it was a man. He wore clothing and his skin did not seem to be made of stone. As he got closer, he saw pigeons perched upon the stranger's head and shoulders as if he were a statue. Dan locked his son’s stroller and stepped away to get a better look at the man’s face. He was older, but not elderly. Crow's feet crinkled the corners of his eyes, wrinkles creased his brow like rolling waves and his hair was an even mix of grey and black. Other than these features he looked relatively unaged, Dan put the man around 55 or so, not too old but definitely not a young gun. His eyes were another story. When Dan looked into his cool grey eyes he sensed eternity looking back. It was as if the man had witnessed a century pass, multiple even, and was far older than he presented to the world. The whole moment made his skin crawl, unlocking his eyes from the man’s gaze and to his cheek where he saw a splatter of pigeon dropping trickling down to his chin.
He did not move to wipe it away.
He did not request Dan move back from his personal space, his gaze still fixed to where the moon had set, hours ago.
A cry perked up from behind Dan. His son had woken up and was nonplussed that he was alone and his ride had stopped moving. He took one more look at the strange man, coming to the conclusion “not my circus not my monkeys”. He gathered up his son and left the park, not once looking back at the man on the bench. Out of sight, out of mind.
4:00pm:
Kevin Tolk and his friends had been coming to the park after school since the soccer season had ended and were in that awkward period before the basketball season started. Without a sport to play they had need of an outlet to release the pent up energy from sitting in a chair listening to Mr.McJohnson drone on about the Kelvin to Celsius conversion rate, whatever that meant. At the park they could run around, toss the football or harass the pigeons drinking from the fountain without teacher ridicule. Kevin always felt bad about that last one. Today, Kevin felt bad about something else. Randy Dickens, the ringleader of their little group, had noticed something out of the ordinary. A man, whom none of them recognized, was sitting motionless on a stone bench that had been donated in memory of Randy’s grandfather. Randy took exception to that, it was his bench after all. Rallying the other boys, he marched his posse right up to this bench thief.
“Hey geizer!” Randy shouted at the man, “That's my bench, you hear me?” He crossed his arms, his boys following suit, Kevin included, in a poor attempt of intimidation.
He did not respond.
He did not leave.
He did not look their way.
His gaze stayed locked to the sun that was just beginning to touch the horizon.
Randy, not accustomed to being ignored, stomped up to the man, nostrils flaring. “Did you not hear me old man, get out of here. At this point, Randy’s face was a mere centimeter from the man, his finger buried in the man’s sternum.
He did not move Randy’s hand.
He did not tell him off.
He did not ask for space.
His gaze stayed true, like Randy did not even exist.
Kevin thought the man looked familiar, he was sure they had never met, maybe he had seen him in a picture? On the news? He was certain he had seen him somewhere. Something was off about the man, outside of his stoney composure, but Kevin could not quite put his finger on it. That was until he got a second look at his shirt. At first he had assumed it was designed to look like the night sky, looking again he realized the man’s black shirt was covered in bird droppings. How long had this man been sitting here? It made the hair on his arms stand up straight. At that point, Kevin wanted to leave, go home and forget the man was even there.
Randy, however, was not one to allow such disrespect go. Jaw clenched, face beat red, he slowly curled his fist and forcefully planted it into the man’s chest. Kevin could have sworn he heard ribs crack. The man fell off the bench on which he sat, landing flat on his back.
He did not cry in pain.
He did not hold his chest.
He did not stand back up.
He just laid there, his legs still resting on the bench, gazing up at the sky.
Randy spat on the man’s face and laughed. The boys laughed in kind, all but Kevin, who had a burning coal in the pit of his stomach. What Randy did next made him sick. “Turn around,” a cruel smirk curling on his lips “I need to do my business.” Kevin did so along with the other boys. He wanted to scream, to yell at Randy and tell him to stop. Tears streamed down his face as he heard Randy unzip his pants releasing a steady stream, using the man laying on the ground as a proverbial urinal. Why were no adults intervening? Why was no one doing something to stop it from happening? There were at least a dozen adults strolling in the park, surely someone would act. But no one did, no one grabbed Randy by the shoulder and forced him to back away, no one stopped them as they left the park, not one. Randy, Kevin and the others were able to walk out of the park, unfettered and unpunished. Because boys will be boys.
11:50pm:
Vivian Rolland closed her laptop, stood up from her desk, bridged her hands high above her head and stretched until she felt that desired pop in her lower middle back. She let out a satisfied sigh and looked at the clock on her bedside table. 11:51. Had she really been at it for almost twelve hours? The half eaten bowl of microwaved ramen on her desk she had for lunch sat there in confirmation. She knew she had a tendency for losing herself in her work but this was a new record. She had to be up in five hours for her writing seminar and needed at least four hours of sleep to be at all functional in the morning. She was searching for her pajama bottoms in her dresser by the light of the full moon when she looked out the window. She loved that her apartment looked over the park in the middle of town. A view was a view, and she did enjoy people watching, who didn’t? Tonight however, she did not much like what she saw. In the middle of the park was a hooded figure literally stealing the clothes off the back of a man who she assumed had passed out and fallen off the stone bench.
He didn’t yell for help.
He didn’t push the man off.
He didn’t fight back in any way.
He just lay there gazing up at the full moon above.
Her mind raced. What should she do? What could she do? Her phone was dead so she could not call the police. Even if she did they wouldn’t get there in time and it's not like she got a good look at the guy. She certainly was not about to risk her own safety by confronting the thief. No, she needed to leave it be, someone else would find the man and get him home. He was not her problem. She grabbed her pajamas from her drawer and went to change. Then she heard the bang, and not the car backfiring kind but the bullet to the head kind. She ran back to the window to witness the hooded figure shoving a handgun into the pocket of his hoodie, flee the park and run out of sight. Tossing her PJ bottoms on the bed, she bolted out the door and down the stairs. It wasn’t until she stepped on a clump of broken pavement that she realized she forgot her shoes. Leaving a trail of blood, she limped across the street to the bench where the man should have been laying, shot dead. But he was gone, not even a puddle of blood where he had been shot.
Just as he had appeared, he vanished: unseen and unheard without a word.
12:00am:
Kevin could not sleep. The events of the day ate at him from the inside out and the burning coal in his stomach only burned hotter. He was too afraid to tell anyone about what had occurred. If he told his parents they would flip out and would tell his friends' parents. If that happened surely he would never be able to show his face at school again, let alone play on the basketball team this winter. He just needed to let it go. So he did the one thing that put his mind at ease. He set up his telescope at the window and looked up to the moon. It was especially bright tonight, and as large as he had ever seen it, if not larger. He spent many nights studying its rocky surface looking for craters he had yet to discover. Tonight, however, he thought he might draw the man on the moon. He took a pencil and his notebook and began to draw as he looked through the telescope's lens. Once finished he brought it back to his desk, turning on the lap to get a better look at his work.
His pencil dropped to the floor
His jaw went slack
His heart felt as if it would beat out of his chest.
His drawing of the man on the moon was that of the man in the park, sitting on the stone bench.
Kevin hurried back to his telescope. It had to be a mistake, just his guilty conscience projecting onto the page. He had no need for a telescope to tell him his act was true. The moon had enveloped the town’s entire sky line, the man’s face now formed and in full view for Kevin to see. While the man's eyes now glowed a transcendent red, his features were unmistakable. His stare blazed with righteous fury, but Kevin sensed it hid a deep disappointment.
Humanity’s soul had been tested.
Humanity’s soul had been found wanting and rotten.
Humanity had failed.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin whispered as the man on the moon’s mouth opened and the earth around him turned to dust. “You deserved better.”
Then there was nothing.
Nothing but the Man on the Moon, his gaze still fixed on the vast abyss.