Nosy

Henry," the old woman yelped down the hall. “He’s doing it again!”

Her rotund husband lounged in the other room—sprawled out on his genuine leather, cup-holder armrest recliner—lazily watching Euphoria on his wall-mounted 80 inch Sony Bravia. He wasn’t sure what the whole show was about, but the girls were cute.

“HENRY!”

He sighed. “Give it a rest, Mabel!” Back on the screen, Sydney Sweeney removed her bra.

Henry turned the volume up.

“But he’s just out there! Floating!” Mabel peeked through the blinds again.

Across the street, seventy feet up, the pitch-black silhouette of their next door Neighbor hovered, arms outstretched, casting an eerie relief against the thick dusk mist—an oppressive sky tainted with the glow of dying daylight.

“It’s a free country, Mabel!” Henry shouted over the moans of the television. “Forget about it!”

“But it’s too horrible!” She cried.

Henry cranked the volume higher.

As if hearing the old woman, the Neighbor cast his gaze downward. Mabel recoiled. His eyes burned with a pallid flame, and there in the flicker lay merciless visions—a cleansing, all-consuming conflagration.

A call to consume the world.

“No, NO!” Mabel groaned, her liver-spotted hands trembling. She found herself unable to pull away, incapable of pushing the intrusions from her mind—the sight of bodies, endless bodies, twisting like burning reeds in the smokey Holocaust.

“I SAID KNOCK IT OFF MABEL,” Henry screamed over the deafening cries of Sydney Sweeney’s Emmy-worthy climax. “IM TRYING TO WATCH TV!”

Mabel slumped to the floor, wheezing, her forehead beaded with sweat. Out in the thick mist, the silhouette had disappeared.

“NOW I GOTTA REWIND ‘CAUSE I MISSED THE BEST PART.” Henry pounded the armrest. “WHY DONT YOU GET A DAMN HOBBY?”

As her breathing eased, Mabel’s gaze drifted from the blinds to the lighter on the coffee table. And when she picked it up, a calm tide swept through her. For the first time in her life, she knew exactly where to begin.

She never liked that recliner anyway. Ω