The Stranger Who Always Knows My Name

The Story

It started on a rainy Tuesday morning.

I boarded the Number 8 bus, headphones in, eyes glued to the floor as usual. The driver, a man I had never seen before, gave me a nod.

“Morning, Alex.”

I froze.

I never told him my name. I didn’t know his either. Maybe I had misheard him through the rumble of the bus engine, I thought. But no—he said it clearly, like he’d known me for years.

“Uh… morning,” I mumbled, sliding into a seat near the back.

The next day, it happened again. A cashier at the corner store scanned my energy drink and chips, smiling.

“That’ll be five twenty, Alex.”

The way she said it—so casual, so certain—made my stomach twist. I hadn’t worn a nametag since high school.

I tried to laugh it off, but the pattern grew impossible to ignore. Strangers on the street would greet me. “Have a nice day, Alex.” “Watch your step, Alex.” “Good luck tomorrow, Alex.”

They all knew me.

I thought maybe it was a prank, or maybe I was paranoid. I Googled “feeling like everyone knows your name,” half expecting to find some obscure mental condition. But nothing fit.

The next week, I stopped for coffee at the café near the station. The barista scribbled something on my cup without asking for my order. When she handed it to me, I nearly dropped it.

ALEX — BLACK COFFEE, TWO SUGARS.

It was exactly what I always ordered, but I had never told her. My mouth went dry as I forced a smile and walked out.

By then, I was seeing it everywhere. A street musician sang my name between verses of a song. A flyer taped to a light pole read, “We See You, Alex.” Even advertisements on the subway seemed to warp, words twisting until I swore they spelled my name.

I stopped sleeping well. My dreams were filled with voices whispering my name, thousands at once, overlapping until it became a deafening roar.

One night, unable to stand it anymore, I confronted a man who brushed past me outside the station.

“Hey!” I snapped. “How do you know my name?”

The man froze. His eyes went wide with something I can only describe as pity.

“You don’t remember?” he asked softly.

“Reme Bmber what?”

out he just shook his head and hurried off, vanishing into the crowd.

By then, my life had unraveled. I avoided people. I stopped riding the bus, stopped shopping at the corner store. I even quit my job. Still, the world found me. Anonymous numbers called my phone, and when I picked up, voices whispered, “Alex.” My inbox flooded with blank emails, all sent from different accounts, all with the subject line: We Know You.

One evening, desperate for answers, I locked myself in my apartment and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

“Who am I?” I demanded aloud. My voice cracked, raw from nights of silence.

The mirror seemed to ripple, like water disturbed by a pebble. For the briefest second, I saw not my reflection, but thousands of faces staring back. Some young, some old, all murmuring my name in unison.

I stumbled back, nearly tripping over the sink.

And then I heard it—a knock at my door.

I froze. No one ever visited me.

The knock came again, steady, deliberate.

Heart pounding, I crept to the door. “Who is it?” I called.

A woman’s voice answered. Calm. Familiar. “Alex. It’s time.”

I didn’t recognize her. But my bones did. Every cell in my body knew that voice.

When I opened the door, the hallway was filled with people. Strangers, neighbors, children, old men, all staring at me with solemn expressions.

They spoke in unison.

“You are the one who forgot.”

I shook my head. “Forgot what?”

The woman at the front stepped forward. Her eyes were endless, black like midnight.

“You asked to live among them. To forget who you were. To be ordinary.” She paused, tilting her head. “But the time for forgetting is over.”

The crowd closed in. Hands reached for me—gentle, not violent, but inevitable.

I tried to scream, but the sound caught in my throat.

The last thing I remember before the world went dark was a thousand voices whispering my name, pulling me back into a place I must have once belonged.

And in that final moment, I realized the truth.

They weren’t strangers at all.

They were family.

And I was finally going home.