It was raining again. And windy. I sat—almost lying down, really—on the big beige couch in the living room. It was 7:49am. A Thursday. My girlfriend had left for work exactly nineteen minutes prior. I sipped my white porcelain mug of English Breakfast tea, steam rising up and curling, the brown liquid slightly burning my tongue.
My phone suddenly buzzed on vibrate, the iPhone doing its crazy little jiggle-dance on the coffee table right next to me. A notification, I could tell. I picked the phone up lazily, off its wireless circular charger, seeing the green bar which said 53%, and looked at the screen. Substack. Figured. But what I saw terrified me.
There was a message from some random Substack writer, someone called, vaguely, “D.T. Insanity.” The message said one laconic thing: I see you.
Immediately, like some Made-for-TV horror film, I glanced up and scanned the street outside. Large windows faced me on both sides. To my right side, I saw the little carport where Carla and I both parked our cars. I heard rain tinking against the corrugated roof there. Empty. Her car was of course gone and mine was parked way down at the end by the garage, charging (full electric).
Then I looked out the window to my left, seeing the road, Tinnison Avenue, rain slanting down roughly in little gray slices, wind slanting trees’ leaves, bending them to its will, Eucalyptus and Oak trees standing tall, thick and erect across the street. The road was empty. It was always quiet around here just outside Santa Maria, an hour more or less north of Santa Barbara off Highway 101.
There was nobody around.
I looked at Audible on my phone; the book was still playing. I couldn’t hear the voice; it was on my ear buds, connected by the thin white cord to my phone. Upon seeing the Substack comment, I’d snatched the buds out of my ears. I’d been listening to H.L. Mencken’s genius collection, Chrestomathy. Mencken had been a new favorite—a renowned 20th century journalist, fierce acerbic critic, reviewer of literature, slicer-and-dicer of ideas large and small. He’d lived all his life in Baltimore, Maryland, 1880 to 1956. His wit, his rabid, ribald honesty, his truthful, axiomatic, insightful, incisive prose cut me like a serrated knife right to the heart. He made me bleed. Figuratively speaking.
I was split down the psychic middle: Part of me wanted to respond to the Substack guy, and part of me wanted to walk outside and look more carefully. “I see you.” Of course I was afraid. And yet I knew I had to do something. Call the cops? This idea flitted through my unnerved mind like a diamond hurled at my forehead. What? The cops? No. C’mon, man. Get ahold of yourself.
Swallowing, my heart beginning to thud a shade or two harder, I cleared my throat, sat upright, and started to respond to the guy.
But just as I was writing, I got a second message on my previous Substack post (from yesterday) from, you guessed it: D.T. In sanity.
Jesus.
This one said: Nice house. Small. I like the carport. Elegant corrugated roof.
Crimson bloomed into my cheeks; adrenaline pulsed throughout my vascular system like a shot of Heroin.
What in the fuck.
I scanned out both windows again. Gray, rainy, windy, cold-seeming.