A Familiar Face

Photo by Aditya Sethia on Unsplash

I heard our brains subconsciously recall faces we don’t notice on a daily basis. That’s why we sometimes dream of an unfamiliar face, a stranger, only to see the person we saw in our minds in our neighbourhood or on our way to work.

But I was different. I remembered every face I saw – even those I only saw in passing.

Like a curse, I’ve never looked at someone and thought: “I don’t know this face.”

Hard to believe, isn’t it? Things only get worse from here. You see, I didn’t only remember every face I saw, I also read them subconsciously. 

It was out of my control. I wasn’t superstitious or anything like that, okay? But once I’ve seen a face, I tend to remember the features and associate them with some traits or characteristics. It was some kind of gut feeling, maybe.

When I first realised this ability – or became aware of it, that is – I was in love with a guy I worked with at the supermarket.

He was my first love. Mind, I didn’t fall in love easily and I was at that point in my life in my late twenties.

But there was always something that gnawed at my conscious with this person. I didn’t have the words to describe what it was. I could just… feel it.

Then one day, it dawned on me, the reason why this guy made me so uncomfortable. 

Growing up, I had a habit of watching serial killer documentaries. It wasn’t like I was paying these documentaries any particular attention, but I was a highly intelligent and easily bored teenager, who wanted some fun in my otherwise dull life.

And this was where things got interesting. The guy I was in love with had some striking resemblance to a young Jeffrey Dahmer.

I didn’t even realise this until I learnt my crush was a married gay man. How did I find out I hear you ask?

Here’s what went down. 

Like the bored person I was, I scrolled through a subreddit about famous serial killers when a picture of young Dahmer came into view. 

For a solid minute, I just stared at the photo without understanding why. I went back and searched his life before his crimes, his conflicting sexual orientation, and the crimes he committed. 

When I returned to the picture after my brief research, I realised that I had seen the same photo from a documentary I had watched way back in high school. 

The resemblance was too remarkable to ignore on my part. This was what kept me from acknowledging my distorted feelings all along. 

Although it had no scientific bearing, the facial features, the sexual orientation, coupled with my own intuition told me there was some significance to my concerns.

Over the years, my conviction grew. I wasn’t coming up with things. A certain facial feature meant a lot of things – it told me a story even unfamiliar to those whose faces I read. 

But I never met a face like mine. I looked through all the solved and unsolved murder forums out there on the Internet, yet my searches yielded no results.

I didn’t even know why I thought I was either capable of murder or prone to be a victim. The thing was, like a sole ship at sea, I knew everything about other people but nothing about myself.

Then, as time went on, I began to hate this curse.

While I had always been a recluse and would forever be, I stopped going to work and avoided looking at people’s faces.

I wrestled with the black dog at this point, was running out of money, and grew increasingly paranoid. I even feared my own shadow.

That was how bad things had become in the course of a few months. No longer able to breathe under these miserable circumstances, I climbed the fire escape and reached the rooftop with a view of the city below.

The hills of powdery snow covered everything in a white veil, chilling everything to the bone. The snow rarely stayed for more than two days in the past years. But this time it was different.

It blanketed the quiet working-class neighbourhood, turning it into a breathtaking white wonderland.

As if on purpose. As if the heavens knew what I was about to do. 

I let my hollow gaze drift to the weary figures slaving through yet another miserable day and breathed out a sigh.

It was pointless. All of this. Living was pointless, with no space for growth or progress, yet we all clung to the hope that someday everything would change for the better. It wouldn’t.

The common people were destined for a life of despair from the moment they were born, trapped in an endless cycle that sucked their life out of them.

Somewhere out there were filthy people, rich from birth and ignorant of the suffering of the common people, ready to assist in the murder of innocent children.

Their only purpose was to inflict as much pain as possible on those who were bound to become human shields, those who were different from themselves – even inferior in their eyes – human animals living in open sewage. 

I took a step forwards, ready to jump to my belated death when my eyes landed on a little girl swinging by herself in the nearby playground.

Squinting, I stepped back and observed her from where I tethered on the blink of death. There was a certain sombreness to her I couldn’t quite place at the time. But whatever it was, it piqued my interest. 

She had no jacket on. Her ripped clothes were too thin for this kind of weather and her draped hair was dishevelled.

I frowned, leaning forwards. Marks of abuse around her wrists were visible even from this distance. But I couldn’t see her face.

She was staring at her feet the entire time – just like how I used to do when I was an innocent being betrayed by the world. I stumbled back as this thought crossed my mind.

I blinked repeatedly, my unfocused eyes darting from side to side, when a noise snapped me back to reality. I leaned forwards even more, reaching out to the chilly air in a futile attempt to save the little girl.

My eyes welled with tears. My shaking legs threatened to give way under me. 

Two men approached her. They were too young to be her father or—I turned around as I realised I was looking at their faces, covering my mouth as a gasp wanted to escape.

My heart pounded hard against my chest and drowned out my shallow breathing. When I looked behind me, the girl and the two men were long gone.

I clutched the side of my trousers and clenched my jaw, feeling how every fibre of my body screamed in agony. I collapsed, swinging back and forth in place, my ears covered but the wicked voices all the clearer.

Those men, their faces…

I shook my head, trying to get rid of the dismal thoughts, but they wouldn’t fade away. 

Panting out of control, I stood up and turned around, leaping forwards to finish what I had come here for. But I halted.

Staring down at my paralysed legs, I tried to take the leap of faith. A tear trickled down my sunken cheek devoid of colour. I draw a deep breath, my chest rising and falling to the cadence of my irregular heartbeat.

I stepped away. Defeated, miserable beyond what words could capture, a failure who couldn’t even take her own life. 

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about that child? That helpless, abused child…?

I wanted her gone from my mind, but her slouched shoulders, her dejected gait, and her silent scream for help lingered in my mind like a harrowing tattoo etched into the very depths of my mind.

Shaking my head, I shut my eyes, the tears streaming down my face in a cascade, as I took another miserable step back. 

I returned to my one-bedroom apartment and, I know how this sounds, brewed myself a cup of black coffee. It wasn’t like I felt like eating anyway, and what else could calm my nerves but a dose of caffeine at such an hour?

My eyes were drawn to the kitchen window the entire night. It had a great view over the playground from over here.

I couldn’t make her disappear. She occupied too much space in my head. It was driving me up the wall.

As I was having these thoughts, my eyes shifted focus and landed on the cluttered desk in the living room. 

Before my suffering began, I used to write in my free time as a hobby. It was the only thing that made the faces disappear.

I hadn’t written anything for years and just… just gave up on life.

I glanced at the vacant playground one more time before standing up and dragging my feet across the living room. Opening the top drawer, I grabbed the ballpoint pen and my pocket diary I hadn’t used in years.

A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I leafed through the scribbled pages. It was the last gift my deceased Mum gave me before she was hospitalised.

She passed away not long after, the cancer had spread to her lungs, and all I had left of her was this stupid diary. 

As I sat at the kitchen table and wrote a final entry, jotting down as many details of the little girl and the two men as possible, I noticed that it snowed outside.

I put away everything and closed in on the laced window, watching the crystals descend from the heavens and settle gently on the ground. It was beautiful.

I looked away as a strange thought took over my mind. Had I taken my life earlier tonight, I wouldn’t have witnessed this magical moment.

A smirk appeared on my lips. How ironic. 

The little girl didn’t show up at the playground for a whole week. I kept a record of her absence, meticulously writing it down every day, and was considering giving up.

I think waiting for her gave me something to look forwards to, something to keep me occupied and delay my plans to end my existence. Perhaps she was an excuse for me to keep living. 

Most of all, I wanted to see her face. This was the first time in my life I ever wanted to see someone’s face, to look into their soul and read their deepest thoughts. 

Someone knocked at my door in the middle of the night on the eighth day. I had just put away my diary and was going to bed.

The sudden banging alerted all my senses. No one visited me. Ever. I had no friends, not a single person to confide in – never had and never needed one, either.

I know some people doubted the validity of this statement; they believed that humans have an innate need for companionship. But that was not how I saw it.

I never fit in – I always went against the grain – and so it was only natural for me to consider ending my life as a way out.

But I had not always been alone. 

My older sister was living abroad and had made herself a fortune working at a corporate firm. Unlike me, she was not burdened with this curse that haunted our family for as long as I could remember.

It dawned on me, as I thought about her this very moment, that two years had slipped by since the last time I heard from her.

But I guess it was all for the better. I was a wreck, and I didn’t want to burden her with my miserable existence. 

I couldn’t see anyone from the peephole. The automatic lights had been malfunctioning for over a month and since I lived in a poor neighbourhood, the property manager wasn’t too keen on replacing anything that he considered would “malfunction” again.

People in this neighbourhood couldn’t complain. They were either too broke to speak up or not on good terms with the authorities since most earned a living by criminal means; that was the only way they could make ends meet since no one wanted to hire them. 

When I cracked the door open, I could hear the faint creaking of someone descending the narrow stairs. I looked down from the landing and saw the silhouette of a tiny human dragging her feet along the stairs.

She broke off and looked up when I asked who she was. That was when I saw her face.

Her dented eyes looked empty, her sunken cheek lacked colour, and her thin lips were almost purple. It was like staring into a living skeleton. 

How long had she been without food? The girl collapsed. I sprinted down.

The poor thing couldn’t be more than 55 pounds. I carried her back to my apartment and put her down on the chintz sofa I inherited from my mum.

Her limbs were colder than death – more painful than life itself – bruised, scarred… rotting. 

I placed a quilt over her and scampered to the kitchen to boil water. As I poured the hot water into the water bag, the girl mouthed something, something that surprised me more than it should. 

The piping hot water spilt on my hand. I put it under running water. Had I heard it wrong? I must have.

The girl kept muttering for herself, like in a trance, but I couldn’t discern what she was saying this time. She spoke in a foreign language. 

As I placed the water bag under the chequered quilt, I noticed that she was drugged. 

The needle marks on her arms were red, swollen, and warm to the touch – infected.

I knew at that point that I had to take her to the hospital, but as if she knew what I was thinking, she grabbed my arm as I rose to my feet and opened her eyes.

Her brittle nails dug into my skin as she subtly shook her head, pleading with her misty eyes to not call the ambulance. 

I gently removed her fingers, taking care not to hurt her, and stumbled backwards. The chilly air stuck in my throat as a lump formed.

I doubled over, panting, trying to catch my breath. Memories I never knew I had flooded my consciousness and played on repeat in my mind. 

Her face, she was—I lifted my head as she held my hand, holding tight as if to comfort me. No, she…

What was going on? My body…

As I placed my trembling hand on my pounding chest, something in me broke into pieces. Tears cascaded down my face, unable to fight the harrowing memories taking over every inch of my being.

I shoved her hand away and turned away. I- I had to call the police, I had to—I jolted up. 

Turning around, the sudden thud behind me sent a cold shiver down my spine.

The little girl faced me, her dead eyes a reflection of my own, urging me to remember the things I thought I had long forgotten.

I covered my ears and shut my eyes, trying to shut off her voice and the memories that haunted me.

I backed away, inching closer to the peeling walls. I could hear her crawl towards me, but I didn’t dare to open my eyes and face my demons. 

Harrowing memories of the past – my wretched past – took hold of me. As she grabbed my ankle, whispering still these wicked things to me, I shrieked at the top of my lungs and pushed her away, pleading with her to stay away.

But no matter what I did, how many times I begged her, she kept crawling closer, relentlessly, repeatedly.

That was when it dawned on me, and I slowly opened my eyes. How did she know I was watching her all this time?

A smile played on my lips. It wasn’t real. None of this was real. She was a fragment of my messed-up mind playing games with me – to keep me alive. 

I held her in a chokehold and pushed her against the open window. She was stronger than I expected, so much stronger that I for a brief second thought she was real.

As she kicked and shouted to be set free, I broke into laughter like a maniac, in awe of what my mind created – a shrewd reflection of my younger self.

She wasn’t supposed to be alive.

I had to save her. 

I tightened my grip on her throat, feeling the pulse of her racing heartbeat beneath my fingertips.

With a final gasp, her body went limp in my hands, and I released her, watching as she descended into the white abyss below.

As the impact crushed my skull and shattered my limbs, my vision blurred. Through the pain, I managed to focus on the rooftop, where a little girl stood, her eyes locked onto mine.

The ripped pages of my diary fluttered away in the chilly weather, carried away by the whistling wind. Faces I had never seen before, not even in my subconsciousness, surrounded me. 

Some asked if I could hear them, pleading for me to breathe, others tried to call for an ambulance to save my miserable life.

Two men appeared behind the little girl on the rooftop. I lifted my weak arm numb with pain. I tried to reach out to her, I tried to warn her, I tried to tell her to run, but no words escaped my charred lips.

The men took her away – just like how they did to me.

I shut my eyes, trying to shut off the images of the past replaying in my dying mind. A tear trickled down my pallid cheek.

The memories perished, finally, forever gone with the wind, and so did I.