The Nightmare Maker

A measly few bills were crumpled in his pocket. He could already see the cashier's disgusted expression when he pulled them out to pay for the cheapest cigarettes available. She'd take them reluctantly, as if they smelled.

Money is money. He would counter, even though she would say nothing. The apologetic smile he would force would feel like sour milk on his lips.

He didn't have enough money for the casino, he knew, just for that one pack of cigarettes. Later that afternoon, he would have to ask his mother for more. An ailing woman, she knew where the money went and still never refused. And when he got a big win on the slot machines, he would give her some of it, of course.

And it was after the encounter with the cashier, in which contrary to his expectations, her expression had remained neutral and beautiful and she had even greeted him with a Have a Nice Day as he left - he was fiddling with the new pack, then fiddling with his old blue lighter - when a fluttering skirt caught his eye and he looked up. That's when he saw her.

Blue eyes and hair so dark it could have been black, just like he'd remembered. Ever since her, he had never been with any woman with blue eyes and dark hair. He tried once, but he couldn't get hard and the woman left his bed quickly. This never really happens, he said. She didn't reply. And how could he ever explain?

Thirty years had gone by since he had left the blue-eyed girl. He had never known her name. Just her screams, and then the silence that followed. When he stood over her, he saw that her eyes had changed – they had lost something invisible and whatever it was, it altered her entire face. In that moment, she reminded him of his grandmother – her eyes had changed just like that once the cancer had spread to her brain.

People die when they decide to.

He'd heard his village whisper whenever an older person died.

She gave up, so she died.

It was time anyway, she'd lived long enough.

She had a happy life, she had many grandchildren.

Once it had been over, he had tried to placate himself with these words for a moment. But the cold guilt he felt washed over him immediately, he felt it down to the toes in his military boots. He hadn't taken them off in days, and splatters of blood decorated the socks he was wearing – the only socks he had.

She wasn't old, she had not lived very long.

The lighter he had been fumbling with slipped out of his sweaty grip, clattered on the concrete. The blue-eyed girl moved towards the doors of the same grocery store he had just been in. She might even have her groceries scanned by the same indifferent cashier.

The house had smelled like burning candles – there hadn't been electricity for weeks when they had come in. And they had found them, and they had dragged them all out. And after an hour, a screaming metallic smell had replaced the scent of wax.

As the girl came closer to him, head down, her hands moving rapidly over her phone screen, a tote bag slumped over her shoulder, his body burst into cold sweat. He was holding his unlit cigarette between his two fingers for dear life.

But something wasn't right - this he realized as the girl nearly reached the doors. Her features were distorted – thicker lips, a longer nose. Her eyes weren't tearful, weren't full of futile rage.

Thirty years.

He remembered.

Thirty years had passed. If this had been her, she would be a middle-aged woman by now. She would be holding a more practical bag or even one of those strollers that older women dragged behind them to the market. She might have even had a small grandchild toddling alongside her.

Of course, though, only her remains had aged thirty years. They were in a cemetery a three hour ride away,

It was not her, and it was not her ghost.

He expected the realization to relax his body, steady his breath, but it didn't. He stood, soaked in freezing sweat in the August shade, his fingers now crushing the cigarette.