The Figure

The Figure

The figure stepped backwards into the dark recesses of the room. The sound of the number, “nineteen,” fading along with it. Andrés blinked over and over, trying to make out what he had just seen. His eyelids began to twitch as he transitioned back and forth from a series of blinks to squinting, to see if anyone was there. He reached out to his girlfriend, but she was not there. It had been a while since she was there next to him and at times he wondered if she was ever there at all. He reached over and turned on the lamp that was sitting on top of his nightstand, next to his bed. The darkness scattered from the room and revealed that, indeed, neither Vero nor anyone else was in the room with him. He replayed the experience in his head. He could only see contours of a human-like shape dissolving from his limited field of view. There was some semblance of light coming in from his window, but it was still dark out and his curtains were not drawn.

Andrés had been experiencing dreams more often in the last couple of weeks than he had in his whole lifetime. At least that is how he felt. His therapist had suggested he keep a dream journal to interpret how he was processing his loss. He looked at a small notebook that sat under his lamp. Its black, glossy surface shining in reflection of the lamplight as if trying to draw his attention. Andrés didn’t understand what any of this was supposed to mean. Vero was gone and his dreams were weird and cryptic. He had decided to go to a therapist to try and make sense of it all. He opened the notebook and wrote down, “19.” That is the fifth dream in a row with some shadowy figure saying numbers while disappearing, he thought to himself. “1, 4, 9, 15, 19.” What is the meaning of this? He closed the notebook and noticed an overdue rent bill that was previously obscured. Maybe the figure is my landlord sneaking into my room at night to keep me up to date on my late fees, he joked to himself. He had not felt well enough to work again or do much of anything ever since the accident and it was affecting his financial responsibilities.

Andrés stared at the ceiling for a while until deciding to make something for breakfast. He checked the time on the stove, which read 10:00 AM. “How long was I laying in bed?” he thought out loud. Time had become a curious thing to Andrés. Some days would drag on, while on other days, the sands of time slipped through his fingers as he tried to get a grasp back on his life.

A slow sizzle crept into his aural awareness. The edges of the eggs he was cooking bubbled as the clarity of the egg white faded into the pan like a distant, childhood memory. Maybe that is what the figure represented? A memory? He flipped the eggs and dashed them with first salt and then black pepper. He could not quite let go of the figure and what it was supposed to mean, if it was meant to mean anything at all. Where did this figure go? He struggled to remember more details. It seemed to have faded somewhere into the corner of the room, by the bookshelf. His eyes could never adjust in time, however, to get a clear glimpse of exactly where the shape seemed to go. He finished his eggs and decided to step outside for some air.

Andrés lived on the second floor of some four-story dilapidated apartment complex in the liver of some industrialized mid-western city, in the United States. He always considered it the liver because it seemed to only draw toxicity to its location. His landlord, neighbors, and even the surrounding chemical plants tended to qualify his sentiments. On top of that, he felt as though there was an added haze to the air since losing Vero. The landlord’s office was directly across the hall from the elevator, so he decided that taking the stairs would be the best route. Once at the bottom of the stairwell, he slipped out the side exit.

It was overcast again, but nevertheless it was objectively a nice day. It was seventy-four degrees out with no wind. He held his breath and listened to the sounds of the city. He had begun to space out when a U-Haul truck hit a large pothole in the street in front of him and out fell a book from the back of the truck. He looked at the book and then to the back of the truck. It was close enough to clearly see that the back of the truck was not open. Perplexed, Andrés stepped down from the sidewalk to look at the book. The book was titled, Lucky You. “How ironic,” he said under his breath. There was an image resembling a scratchers ticket on the cover. Come to think of it, I am pretty sure that Vero owned this book, Andrés thought. He felt a sudden and strange sense of synchronicity, which manifested as a mild buzzing somewhere right below his chest. His eyes widened. Maybe the numbers from my dreams are significant? Perhaps the universe is trying to aid me in winning some sort of lottery or prize drawing? At this point any sum of money would alleviate the financial burden he was carrying. If he could win enough to get out of this city, maybe he could then begin to put the pieces of his life back together. He paused as he realized the desperate absurdity of his “realization.” Feeling foolish, he decided that he had been out in the world for long enough. He left the book where it lay and worked his way back up to his room.

As he reached his door, he thought it a good idea to talk to his therapist about his strange experience. He mulled over the possibilities of what his therapist might say as he stepped into his apartment and shut the door behind him. Upon doing so, the sound of something hitting the floor came from his bedroom. He went to investigate and there on the floor lay a book. He recognized the words Lucky You printed on the cover. Andrés stared at it for a moment. He picked it up and went to put it back in its place when he noticed a reasonably sized box, which he had not seen before. It was hidden behind the middle row of books.

Between the two of them, Vero was the reader and he rarely paid much attention to the bookshelf. He pulled out what appeared to be a lock box of some kind. It looked as though it required a five-digit code to open and written on the front of it was, “Para nuestro futuro,” in Vero’s handwriting. His hands trembled slightly as he studied the writing. He missed her deeply. He looked at the five-digit code, which was currently set to all zeros. On top of never seeing this lockbox before, he had also never seen one with codes that went up to twenty. That aspect was especially peculiar to him. He turned the cylinders to the sequence of one, four, nine, fifteen... Pausing, he took a deep breath and rolled the last cylinder to nineteen. He felt the soft vibration of a click ripple through his hands. His stomach dropped, much like it does to a passenger when an airplane first lifts from the tarmac. He lifted it open and there on the inside of the lid was a photo of he and Vero, smiling while embracing each other at the hip.

She never told me about this, he thought, this was a good sized box to have kept hidden from me for any real length of time. He removed a plastic tray that was immediately inside the box, revealing stacks of one hundred-dollar bills. His jaw dropped open. He counted a total of two hundred bills. He stared into the box as the absurdity of twenty thousand dollars, currently sitting in his hands, slowly became a reality. Vero had a dream of getting out of this town. She had mentioned that this was the year, but she said that every year.

Perhaps Vero was the figure in his dreams, still trying to fulfill hers. By now Andrés had fallen to his knees and the cash had spilt on the floor. He replayed the dream again and again in his mind. The clarity of the shadowy figure fading forever away towards the bookshelf, like a sunspot behind his eye lids. A weight had lifted off his shoulders and an emptiness partially filled. “I love you, Vero,” he said out loud, “nos vemos.” He wiped a budding tear from his eye, stood up, and headed towards the landlord’s office. This will be the year, he thought.