Old Man

In a corner of a messy, badly lit room was seated an old man, smiling strangely and beckoning me over. He was unshaven, and the grey stubble against old skin helped produce an almost vile, shameless effect. Though perhaps that was simply an unfortunate result of the violation of aesthetics, as it were. It was hard to know if he was really as old as he looked, or, strangely, even endlessly more so. Despite myself, I felt a revulsion, a desire to leave- and quickly- but something horribly mesmeric drew me over, while he went on smiling, as if reassuringly, and beckoning.

He was pointing down in the darkness at some notebook on his lap, his eyes darting from me to the book. So I looked down. And on the page was the most unspeakable, depraved of images, what one might have hoped was beyond all imagining. A kind of noiseless laughter was erupting from the old man, his face now infinitely mocking and triumphant. I didn't stay around. It wasn't a pretty scene.