WINDOW Flash Fiction by Travis Sentell The old man paused at the window. Briefly—it wasn't long. I don't want you to get the impression he was stalking the cafe or anything. More like a balking glance, a stutter-step to check his reflection at that precise angle when a store window will allow that sort of thing. Not that I'm attributing sentience to the window, just the laws of nature and all that business. The thing was, I had to assume that the old man didn't see me there, or else he wouldn't have paused. I mean, I was right there—maybe four, five inches from his face. And he paused! I don't let my own mother get that close to me, and this...creature I hardly knew had perfunctorily invaded whatever personal space decorum rules I had— I don't think a thin sheet of glass precludes normal societal rules, right? I shouldn't have been angry, I know that. And maybe it was the triple-espresso chasing my red blood cells around my body in that frenetic game of tag, but there you are anyways—pure and simple anger. I had the sudden impulse to put my fist through the glass and poke him in his fat, flat nose. Not punch him you see, I didn't want to hurt the chap—looked like a nice enough fellow. But just tap him a bit—just to see the expression on his face when his own reflection suddenly exploded. His visage, sort of separating itself out into the street. That big liver spot right under his bottom lip would land in the streaming gutter...that little spot of unshavenness, prickly and dark in its horrifying protrusion would land on his old, unlaced boots. Brown boots—probably waterproof at some point, but now as spotted and stained and weather-beaten as the impassive mask that paused at the window. Paused! Four inches from my face! Maybe five, but it was close—that's the thing you have to understand. It really wouldn't have bothered me otherwise, I promise—I just came for a cup of coffee. So here we are, right? Me and this older fellow, staring right at each other, a more intimate moment than I've had in years, unless you count that time with Margaret Hutchins, but I know she doesn't, so I don't really feel justified in doing that. It was only a second, maybe less, but he had enough time to twitch one eyebrow—the right one—as if to say, ‘Hey! That's my face!' Maybe he was saying something else, I don't really know. I'm not trying to give you the idea that I was inside the bloke's head, just that he was close to me. So maybe I could hear his thoughts, if he were thinking them loud enough. But he probably wasn't—not that I'd have any way of knowing. He had little wispies—that's what I call hair when it starts to get chased down old men's scalps—little wispy hairs—poking out from under his Scottish hat. I say Scottish because it looked like that stuff kilts are made out of, but I don't really know for sure, I guess. I just wanted to give you an idea of what it looked like. It was flat, and the top of the hat buttoned on to the brim of the hat—I have no idea why. I didn't approve anyways, don't think that I did. The point was, you could tell the poor chap was going bald—probably'd been losing that battle for years. And it certainly wasn't cold enough to need a hat, right? So this fellow's wearing a hat, scoping himself out in a mirror, probably thinking about how good he looks, how un-bald and dapper and all that business. He had a blue sweater on, but I didn't really look at that—I didn't notice—see, his eyes were the thing. That's what I wanted to tell you about. They were steel grey, only more grey than steel. And they hurt. I suppose that doesn't make much sense, but that's the best I can do. I say ‘steel grey' instead of ‘lead grey' or ‘elephant grey' because I honestly felt that I'd been poked in the retinas by a metal object when I saw his eyes. But that was the thing, the whole crux of the matter when you get down to it—I didn't just see his eyes. We made eye contact...no, that's not right. See, I know he didn't see me, but it was like his eyes didn't carry his soul with him or something because he didn't see me, but I know his eyes did. That sounds horribly disturbed, and I apologize, but this time it wasn't the coffee. Just for the briefest of moments, his eyes jumped out of whoever this old man was, you know, at heart, and they pierced through my eyes and right into my brain. And I felt my brain react—it was the weirdest sensation. I know brains don't have nerve endings and all that, but just the same, I felt my brain, and I felt that steel go right through those two holes in my eyes, straight through. And it hurt. I didn't process all of that until the moment had substantially passed, until the old man was already waddling his way home, or to buy a chicken, or whatever—after he'd stutter-stepped to see himself or kill me or what have you. I guess that's why I wanted to explode his face, because of the pain. I'm not a bad person, I want you to know that. I think I was reacting to the pain. I just wanted to explode his face and tap him. To send his eyes flying right back into his eyes, the steel glass piercing the steel I'd felt. I mean, it seemed only fair at the time, right? An entirely justified action, although perhaps retroactively justified. In any case, the old man paused at the window and it hurt. That's what I was trying to say.