Oarfish
The first time Lara noticed him, he was standing across the street from the pharmacy.
Nothing about him seemed particularly memorable.
Grey coat. Dark trousers. Hands in his pockets.
He was not looking at her.
That was important later.
At the time, he seemed to be watching the traffic, or perhaps the pharmacy window, or nothing at all. His face had the vacant patience of someone waiting for a bus that was already late.
Lara bought aspirin, crossed the street, and walked home.
She forgot him before she reached the corner.
Three days later, he was outside the library.
Again, he was not looking at her.
He stood beneath the awning of a closed bakery while rain slid from its striped canvas in thin silver ropes.
Lara saw him through the library doors.
Grey coat.
Hands in pockets.
Still.
She hesitated for perhaps two seconds.
Then she left by the main entrance.
He did not move.
She passed within twenty metres of him.
Nothing happened.
That evening she remembered the pharmacy.
It was only because of the coat.
There were thousands of grey coats in the city.
She laughed at herself.
A week passed before she saw him again.
The supermarket this time.
Not inside.
Across the car park.
He was standing beside a tree whose leaves had already begun to brown at the edges.
Lara stopped pushing her trolley.
The man was looking toward the road.
Or beyond it.
She could not tell.
A woman with two children passed between them.
A delivery truck reversed.
Someone abandoned a trolley against a kerb.
The ordinary world continued making its ordinary noise.
The man remained still.
Lara loaded her groceries into the car.
When she looked again, he was gone.
That should have reassured her.
Instead, it was the first thing that unsettled her.
Her sister told her she was imagining a pattern.
“You saw the same man three times.”
“Four.”
“When was the fourth?”
Lara looked down at her coffee.
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Near work.”
Her sister waited.
Lara could already hear how it sounded.
“He didn’t do anything.”
“Did he follow you?”
“No.”
“Speak to you?”
“No.”
“Look at you?”
“Not really.”
Her sister leaned back.
“So what did he do?”
Lara watched steam curl from her cup.
“He was there.”
Her sister smiled carefully.
“Lara.”
“I know.”
“No, I’m not saying you’re wrong. Just—what exactly are you frightened of?”
Lara opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
That was the problem.
Fear usually had a verb.
Break.
Chase.
Threaten.
Strike.
Enter.
This man had given her none.
He merely existed in the wrong places.
After that, she began recording the sightings.
Not obsessively.
That was what she told herself.
She wrote dates in the notes application on her phone.
Thursday — pharmacy.
Sunday — library.
Friday — supermarket.
Tuesday — across from office.
There were gaps.
Long ones sometimes.
Nine days.
Eleven.
Once almost three weeks.
Those gaps became worse than the sightings.
During them, Lara began searching crowds.
She checked reflections in shop windows.
She looked behind her when unlocking the front door.
If a stranger stood alone at a bus stop, her stomach tightened before she saw his face.
Eventually she realised something that embarrassed her.
She was disappointed when it wasn’t him.
Not relieved.
Disappointed.
Because when he appeared, uncertainty became temporarily solid.
There.
Grey coat.
Real.
When he did not appear, he could be anywhere.
Winter arrived.
The coat no longer looked conspicuous.
Everyone was grey now.
Lara changed the route she took to work.
Then changed it again.
She stopped going to the café near the station because he had appeared there twice.
She started shopping on Wednesdays instead of Fridays.
She joined another gym.
She stopped using the library.
These decisions felt intelligent at first.
Precautions.
Small ones.
Reasonable ones.
But precautions have a peculiar appetite.
Once fed, they become hungry.
She stopped walking home after dark.
Then she stopped walking home alone.
Then she stopped walking when she could drive.
Her city shrank.
A neighbourhood became three streets.
Three streets became the distance between her office, her car, and her front door.
The man never approached her.
Not once.
She went to the police eventually.
The officer listened without interrupting.
That was almost worse.
“How long has this been happening?”
“Five months.”
“And he has never spoken to you?”
“No.”
“Has he photographed you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Threatened you?”
“No.”
“Followed you home?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No.”
“Do you have a photograph?”
Lara did.
She had taken one through the window of a restaurant two weeks earlier.
The image was blurred by rain.
A grey figure beneath a streetlamp.
The officer enlarged it.
“Is that him?”
“Yes.”
“He’s facing away.”
“I know.”
The officer looked at her.
His expression was not dismissive.
That somehow made the helplessness of the conversation clearer.
“We can make a note of it.”
“A note.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“If he approaches you, contacts you, threatens you, attempts to enter your property—anything like that—come straight back.”
Lara stared at the photograph.
“What if he doesn’t?”
The officer frowned.
“Doesn’t what?”
“Anything.”
In January, Lara spoke to him.
She had promised herself she wouldn’t.
For months she had imagined confrontation as surrender.
If he wanted fear, confronting him would confirm it.
If he wanted attention, confronting him would reward him.
If he wanted nothing—
She could never finish that thought.
He was standing beside the river when she finally crossed the street toward him.
There were people nearby.
Joggers.
Cyclists.
A woman pushing a pram.
Lara approached until only a few steps remained between them.
The man turned his head.
For the first time, she saw his face properly.
Older than she had thought.
Perhaps fifty.
Thin.
Ordinary.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Ordinary enough that she felt a sudden, furious betrayal.
“You.”
He looked at her.
“You’ve been following me.”
The man said nothing.
“I’ve seen you.”
Nothing.
“At my work. At the supermarket. Outside the library.”
His expression did not change.
Lara heard the river moving behind her.
“Why?”
The man’s eyes shifted briefly toward the water.
Then back.
“I wait.”
His voice was quiet.
Lara stared at him.
“For what?”
He seemed surprised by the question.
Not offended.
Not amused.
Simply surprised, as though she had asked why water was wet.
“The right moment.”
Every imagined answer had been better than this one.
“What moment?”
He looked past her.
“I don’t know yet.”
Lara stepped backward.
The man did not follow.
She walked away quickly.
Then faster.
At the corner she turned.
He was still beside the river.
Exactly where she had left him.
She moved apartment two months later.
Different district.
Different building.
Different commute.
Her sister helped carry boxes.
Lara told almost no one the new address.
For the first time in months, she slept properly.
One week passed.
Then two.
A month.
Spring came.
She stopped checking the street before opening the curtains.
She returned to a library.
A different one.
She walked after sunset.
Sometimes she thought about the man beside the river.
I wait.
The words had become absurd with distance.
A sick man’s obsession.
Perhaps he had attached himself to her by accident.
Perhaps she had simply been one object among many in some private geography only he understood.
Perhaps he was still standing beside the river.
Waiting for a moment that would never arrive.
The possibility began to seem almost sad.
Then, one evening in May, Lara looked through the window of a crowded restaurant.
Across the street stood a man in a light summer jacket.
Hands in his pockets.
Still.
She did not scream.
She did not confront him.
She simply stared.
He was not looking at her.
And Lara understood.
He had never needed to.
Years later, she would struggle to explain what happened next.
Nothing happened.
That was the truth.
Nothing happened so completely that it consumed everything.
The man never touched her.
Never entered her home.
Never sent a letter.
Never called.
Never left anything outside her door.
Never threatened anyone she loved.
He did not even appear often.
Sometimes six months passed without a sighting.
Once an entire year.
Lara married.
He was not at the wedding.
She had a daughter.
He never came near the child.
She changed jobs.
Moved again.
Then again.
The man aged.
His hair thinned.
The grey coat disappeared.
His posture bent slightly.
Still, every few months—or every year, or whenever Lara had finally begun to believe that perhaps it was over—she would see him.
At the far end of a station.
Across a square.
Beside a road.
Once through the glass wall of an airport terminal.
Always stationary.
Always waiting.
Lara grew older around him.
Her daughter learned to ride a bicycle.
Her marriage failed.
Her father died.
Her mother forgot her name.
Cities changed.
Shops closed.
Buildings vanished.
The man remained.
Not everywhere.
That would have been easier.
Only somewhere.
When Lara was sixty-three, she saw an oarfish on the news.
It had washed ashore thousands of kilometres away.
The report showed a long silver creature lying against black sand, its narrow body bright as hammered metal.
The presenter spoke about the deep ocean.
About an animal seldom seen alive.
About its strange habit of hanging almost vertically in the water.
Head upward.
Body descending into darkness.
Moving only as much as necessary.
Waiting.
Lara watched the footage twice.
Then turned off the television.
She sat in the quiet living room for a long time.
For the first time, she understood what had frightened her all those years.
It had never been what the man might eventually do.
That was the story she had told herself because actions had beginnings and endings.
Actions could be survived.
Actions could be named.
But he had made himself into something without an ending.
A possibility.
A presence.
A moment permanently about to happen.
And she had spent forty years living inside it.
The last time Lara saw him, he was very old.
So was she.
They were on opposite sides of a small public garden.
Autumn leaves moved between them.
He stood beneath a bare tree.
No grey coat now.
Just a brown jacket hanging loosely from narrow shoulders.
For once, Lara did not feel afraid.
She crossed the garden.
Slowly.
He watched her approach.
“You’re still waiting.”
The old man nodded.
“For the right moment?”
A pause.
Then another nod.
Lara looked at him for a long time.
“And if it never comes?”
Something changed in his face.
Very little.
Perhaps nothing.
Then he smiled.
Not triumphantly.
Not cruelly.
Almost gently.
Lara understood before he spoke.
“It did.”
She stopped breathing.
The old man looked toward the empty garden.
At the trees.
At the path.
At the woman who had spent most of her life wondering when he would finally act.
Then he placed his hands in his pockets.
And waited.
Thank you for reading “Oarfish”! This is a story in a series created for avid readers and English learners who want to enjoy captivating tales while practicing their language skills. Stay tuned for more stories and language tips to enhance your journey!
Explore more short stories in English and Spanish by visiting the section:
Short Stories / Cuentos Cortos
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