The neighbor by the edge ( poemish short story )

I have heard stories,

Of those that go insane,

They speak of this void,

A bottomless place.

They speak of the dark,

That stares back,

Sends chills down the spine,

and follows you home.

It stays with you,

A memory that is a scar,

No one else can see it,

except feeling something is wrong.

You see these people,

and you steer clear,

There is something in their eyes,

that shouldn't be.

I hadn't met any of their kind,

I used to think it was just a children's tale,

but I am not so sure,

when I remember Ole Nickel Dave.

Never hated him,

He was a good man,

His heart was in the right place,

and he always helped the camp.

If you met him,

You would either forget,

Or remember him,

As a pleasant, funny memory.

I knew him a while longer than that,

I knew him well enough,

that even though I knew nothing about him,

I could sit and drink with a pal.

Good old Nickel Dave,

Staring off into the woods,

A glass of juice in hand,

With a content look.

Sometimes though,

There was something else in there,

Just a glimpse,

But enough to scare.

I never asked him about it,

Until near the end,

When the winters were getting colder,

and so were his old weary bones.

"What's that."

"What's what."

"That look in your eyes.-

-It doesn't belong to any man I've ever seen."

The way he faced me that day,

Is still something I like not to think about,

But as I said, he was a good man at heart,

and feeling my fear, his warmth returned to placate it.

First he didn't answer.

I didn't push.

But the sky grew darker,

and finally he spoke.

"It's a place in me.

Where I have felt and seen things,

where for all others the world gives something new,

From me it has taken away.

Places where I know there were supposed to be parts of me,

Pieces that I can only recognize by their absence and half forgotten memories,

I try not to think about it,

It's not who I am,

Nor who I will ever be,

And I am just glad,

I managed to outlive it's call."

"You are depressed?" I asked.

He laughed. A real hearty laugh.

"No. it's worse. I am me,

and there are places where there is nothing for others to grab onto in that."

The unknown scares us,

even in our fellow man."

I want to say I thought about his words,

but the truth is, I was too young to understand them,

Maybe I still am.

"You don't seem mad to me Dave.

You feel like just another regular man.

You live like just another regular man.

What's bothering you friend."

"Nothing is.

Think of it like a cough.

It comes and goes.

A passing fancy."

"But the way you look,

It's unnatural,

like a monster

Pretending to be a man."

Another laugh. Less heartier.

"I ain't no monster.

I will just say this.

Some people fall over the edge,

I live safely away,

But can still see it in the distance."

And with that and a harrumph,

He got up to put out the fire.

We never spoke of it again.

I couldn't think of a reason to ask,

and he didn't bother to have a reason to tell.

I moved two winters later,

But I heard he lived many winters more,

I heard he died with a smile on his face,

Cozy and warm in his bed,

Still a good man as per the neighbors word.

I liked the man,

Another old friend from the distant past,

Yet I cannot help but think about him more often,

As I grow older.

For when I look at the young ones,

The new generation,

Walking down the streets,

More and more often now,

I see that terrible visage.

That flitting look of that dark place,

That only they know about.

I fear for them,

And I fear them,

And I silently give out a prayer,

that the hole by the edge,

Has more souls like Dave's living by it,

Than what my gut says actually lives there,

and comes back wearing their skins.

Their eyes no longer quite as human,

As one ought to be,

In decent society.