Overshadowed — The Stranger (Pt. 1)

The clock struck noon as the wind suddenly swept down and buffeted the surface of the canal, sending ripples across the water. The birds that had been sitting peacefully on the quai shuddered and ruffled their wings, surprised by the strength of the unexpected breeze.

Ash walked along the pedestrian path along the bank, hands in his pockets, his coat fluttering by his side. With the wind, a chill gripped him. Not the kind of chill that strikes you in passing, but the kind that bites at your core, and leaves you shivering as your muscles tense and you try hard to conjure up warm thoughts of your destination to steel yourself for the remainder of your journey. There was something eerie about it to Ash, something unsettling, and all amplified by the tolling of the bell and the hurried thudding of his own footsteps underneath him as he shrugged his coat more tightly around his torso and quickened his pace.

He was thinking about what he had overheard from the psychic’s open door on the corner. As he passed the window, he saw her sitting there, eyes glazed, staring at her phone and scrolling through videos to pass time between her clients. Ash had made eye contact with her briefly, just enough that they acknowledged one another’s existence, but broke it as strangers do and had strolled past with only a slight falter in his stride. 

As he did so, he could’ve sworn he heard her speaking, as if someone else were sitting in the tired, saggy red armchair next to her, though he was certain it was empty just a moment before. No, not as if she were speaking to someone in the armchair. As if she were speaking to him. Why was that? And what her cryptic words mean?

Abandoning the song stuck on repeat in his head, Ash was no longer humming to himself. He was acutely aware of the fading morning and the grayness of the day, how the drab blacks and browns of the brick edifices to his left seemed to muddy the shadow cast by the sky. If he was feeling cheerful before, he was no longer. Come to think of it, he couldn’t really remember exactly what he was feeling—he wasn’t paying attention—but he had suddenly felt an anxious twinge in his stomach, and he racked his brain about the last time he had eaten in a halfhearted attempt to explain away the foreboding mood that had crept into the periphery of his consciousness like frost on a brisk winter morning.

He rounded the corner and navigated through the construction on the cobblestones, taking care not to track too much sand in his shoes so he wouldn’t have to clean it up from the floor of his apartment later. Ash always procrastinated doing chores, so the better care he took of his place day-to-day, he figured, the longer he could get away with his delinquency habit. The dull thudding of his boots against the hollow wooden ramp reverberated between the buildings with unexpected profundity. Or was he just imagining things? Was he just in his head again?

Another left and he emerged onto a slightly busier main street, though it was still quieter than usual. Sundays in the city usually looked this way—for all of the modernity that his generation embraced, something about the traditional values of quiet Sundays seemed to remain ingrained in the culture. Ash didn’t mind. He was usually out late on Saturdays anyway, as he had been the night prior—though the details were a little fuzzy—, and was glad to feel that he wasn’t missing out on anything on Sunday mornings.

Ash dodged a group of loud tourists who seemed to inflame his already-annoyed temperament, and cut a tight turn in front of the scratched glass doors of the sneaker store on the corner, almost stepping on a sleeping bag and a mess of dirty blankets piled up against the entrance as he did so. Ash didn’t know if someone was sleeping there, but felt a twinge of guilt in case he had almost stepped on somebody. Although homeless people occasionally annoyed him when they were extremely insistent or made him feel unsafe when they shouted at him, a not-uncommon occurrence given his penchant for spending time in the bohemian parts of town, he mostly felt pity and guilt when he passed people in obvious distress. He didn’t like seeing this side of his city. He couldn’t even imagine what life would be like in such circumstances, and he didn’t like being presented with the uncomfortable fact that it really was reality for some. To be ignored by both the government and society, to have your life so poorly valued that physical harm might come to you, to be ogled at by countless passersby as if you were some hideously fascinating creature in a zoo…

Interrupting his concerned thoughts, Ash looked up from the red sea of brick that was the sidewalk to see the swish of a black overcoat, not unlike his, disappear inside of his favorite bakery a ways ahead. The face of its owner, which he only glimpsed, froze in Ash’s mind as if it were striding through the doorway in slow motion. It seemed strangely familiar, but of course, he thought…it couldn’t be. Suddenly forgetting about the tension in his shoulders from all the shivering and the lack of sensation in his fingers or nose, Ash bounded three strides to the oversized window by the entrance and rooted himself on the spot to gaze onto the scene inside.

Standing at the counter, leaning forward, both hands pressed into its soft wooden lip, was the silhouette of a man in a long black overcoat, dark gray jeans, and stylish brown leather boots smiling and laughing with the owner behind the register. Ash paused for a moment to take it in. The two men were clearly familiar with each other—he could tell by the casual way the owner reached into the display case to retrieve a cinnamon bun that he had been expecting this customer, that this was a habit. The man rummaged in his coat for his phone to pay, but Ash watched a smile bloom on the owner’s face as he leaned back and shook his hands in front of him, pause for a second for his interlocutor to register his message, and then flash a wink as the other man looked down in what must’ve been a deferential grin.

Ash was so absorbed in thought that he was almost struck in the side of the head by the opening of the door as the customer exited the bakery, the little bell in the doorway jingling seemed to remind him to come back to reality. Ash wasn’t sure why what he had just witnessed had had such an effect on him. Dazed, he couldn’t help but stare at the back of the stranger as he walked the opposite way down the street, pastry in hand, looking like he was singing to himself, black coat fluttering in the wind. After a moment, Ash regained his composure and walked inside.

Liam’s resounding laugh and exclamation of his name when he entered the store snapped Ash out of his head. He returned his friend’s smile as he walked up to the counter and leaned into it with both hands as he asked the first thing that came to his mind.

“How are the repairs coming along, Liam?”

“Oh, we hit a bit of a snag, we found mold beneath the floorboards in the storeroom.” 

Ash inhaled between his teeth. “Ouch. Any idea how long that’ll set you back?”

Liam smiled warmly and said in a low, telling voice, “The health inspector hasn’t been called yet, and cleaning it out should only take a couple days.” Ash raised his eyebrows, but Liam continued, chuckling, “Don’t worry, I know a guy who will do a superb job with the renovations. I wouldn’t serve anything from the new place that I wouldn’t eat myself. It’ll be cleaner than this kitchen is.” He continued looking at Ash as he spoke and reached down into the display case for a cinnamon bun.

“Actually,” Ash interjected, “I wanted to try the almond croissant today.”

Liam returned Ash’s expression of surprise, but only for a moment before responding teasingly, “Well, I suppose the start of the week is always a good time to try something new.” The man’s soft, wrinkled hands set down the pastry they had been holding and slowly exchanged it for another from another part of the case, delicately sliding the croissant into a crinkly paper bag. “That all?” he asked, folding the bag closed and handing it over the counter to Ash, who received it and set it down on the counter as he reached inside his coat for his phone.

“Yeah, you know me,” he replied. Ash’s gesture was interrupted by the old man’s scoff.

“Ash, you know you don’t pay here on Sundays.” Ash did know it, but he always made the effort to reach for his wallet. He figured it was the polite thing to do.

“Thanks a million, Liam,” and with that, Ash grinned and flew out the door. He was slightly bothered by the fact that Liam hadn’t asked how his mother was doing. It was only two days ago that he had mentioned to the bakery owner that she had been admitted to the hospital with difficulty breathing. That particular conversation had turned into an entire afternoon of Liam giving Ash advice on how to deal with an ailing parent over several pastries and cups of coffee “on the house”. The bakery hadn’t been very busy on Friday afternoon, and Ash had also learned that Liam was in the process of opening a new bakery on the other side of town. It wouldn’t be the same with someone else working the register, Ash figured, but on second thought, perhaps it only wouldn’t be the same to him. Ash had known Liam for over a year since Ash had moved to the city and started coming to the bakery almost every day. He respected him—an older man easily past retirement age with kind eyes and a grounded presence who insisted on continuing to run his business so that he might still have some sense of purpose and social interaction in his life.

Shrugging off the thought, Ash turned back onto the side street and continued the way he came out into the cold afternoon.