The Hat Man

It had happened again. It was to be expected, at this point. During the civilized hours of daylight, he almost convinced himself that he was used to it. Something that simply happens every night and must be coped with, just as someone might have to cope with a limp from a car accident with a cane or someone who is lactose intolerant avoids milk.

Obstructive perhaps, but not the end of the world. Maybe he could even turn it around, use it to his benefit. He remembered reading once about trying to use weaknesses as strengths and tried to think of it as such. If he were going to awaken every morning at 3:00 AM, then maybe he could become one of those highly successful people that we always see in motivational YouTube videos. The kind that creates beautiful works of art while others sleep. The kind that rises long before dawn to go for hours long runs in the dark. The kind that, through the sheer force of will and dedication, build their passion into a thriving business.

At least that’s how he tried to think of it during the daylight.

But at 3:00 AM, it was nothing but despair, frustration and fear. He would awaken with a start, his eyes adjusting and his heart thundering. In the summer months, he would sweat. In the winter, he would tremble violently.

And always, the shadow of The Hat Man would linger, usually for only a few seconds and never more than a minute. Though those few seconds would feel like eternity. Sometimes, he lurked in the corner, a silhouette barely visible in the darkness, obscured between the scratched closet door and the old desk chair. Other times, he would stand at the foot of the bed gnawing his teeth, invisible in the darkness, yet somehow impossible to ignore. Once, The Hat Man was outside his bedroom window, peering in from behind the dirty glass, his dark red eyes barely visible against the pitch black silhouette of his body, the features of his face obscured, as always.

In those moments at 3:00 AM, he knew he was never going to be one of those highly successful people and that he would never get used to this.

Eventually, he had drifted back to sleep, just as the gentle blue of the morning sky began to overtake the darkness of the night. It had been restless. He obsessively counted down how many minutes of sleep he might get were he to fall asleep that moment, his anxiety growing with each passing second, making it all the more difficult to sleep. A vicious cycle. His body trembled as if cold, yet his palms were covered in a damp sweat. He tossed and turned, his pillow and mattress bulky and uncomfortable. His throat was parched but drinking water made him have to use the bathroom. Finally, he again drifted off just an hour before the obscenely cheerful musical tune of his phone awoke him at 6:30.

As always, he considered calling in sick to work. As always, he considered quitting. As always, he considered just vanishing. He would get into his blue Honda Civic and drive towards that sterile office where he spent most of his equally sterile life in monotonous boredom. Only instead of taking the third exit, he would just keep driving. Maybe he would end up in the mountains of Colorado, the forests of Montana, or the beaches of California. Anywhere but here.

But every day, he took that third exit and pulled into the sprawling parking lot and reported for duty with the hundreds of others just like him.

He couldn’t remember exactly when The Hat Man had first visited him, but he remembered the circumstances. He had been in middle school, struggling with the divorce of his parents, with adjusting to new feelings and changes in his body and with accepting the end of his childhood. Despite a desperate need to be cool and accepted, a part of him had yearned to hold onto that childhood, to keep watching cartoons and playing with toy dinosaurs in the backyard.

But he knew that could not be. And one night, a night seemingly like every other, he had dreamt of running in slow motion. From what, he did not know. He knew only that a dark, malevolent presence was stalking him, always only a few steps behind. His legs felt warm and as if there were insects crawling about beneath his skin, and the only way to keep them from bursting into flames or to get the bugs to stop was to run as fast as he could.

Which he had found impossible. No matter how fast he pumped his legs, he barely moved. Around him, whispers coming from shapes and shadows in the darkness. The more he pumped his legs the heavier they got. Finally, when he could lift them no more, he collapsed to the ground, cold soil caking his face and hands. When he looked up, The Hat Man was there. He grinned broadly, his white teeth grinding so loudly it caused his ears to ring. His red eyes looked down with an insatiable hunger.

When he awoke that night at 3:00 AM, he caught sight of The Hat Man in the large mirror attached to the door of his closet. After only a second he was gone.

Desperate to hide anything that might be perceived as a sign of weakness, he hadn’t told anyone of the dream or of The Hat Man.

As he had aged, dreams of The Hat Man waxed and waned. In college, he barely dreamt of him at all. During those years he had what he would describe as a typical college experience. He played basketball, he went on dates and partied whenever he could. He even found time to study and keep a part time job at the university bookstore. He had taken up drawing and writing and worked on creating his own comic books. In the fever dream of his late teens and early twenties he even allowed himself to imagine that perhaps he could make it big, that he could be the next Stan Lee or Alan Moore.

But that first summer after graduation, The Hat Man had returned. One warm June evening after smoking a joint he had fallen asleep with the TV on and the window open. The breeze cooled his warm skin and the artificial blue glow of the TV provided a strange, inhuman comfort.

That night he had dreamt of being locked in the bathroom of his childhood home, a place he had not visited in a decade, not since his parents’ divorce. The flimsy wooden door was firmly shut but it shook with a deep, thunderous pounding. What was out there, he did not know. What it wanted with him, he could not say. But it’s intent to cause him harm was clear and the malevolence behind it was obvious.

So he sat on the toilet, his legs huddled against his body as he shook with fear. The sink faucet dripped methodically, providing a disproportionately cacophonous tapping that was audible even over the lumbering and shaking of whatever was trying to break the door down and over his own sobs.

Finally the door burst. At first, it was only a crack but the opening grew and grew. In flooded a deluge of insects. Spiders, centipedes and earwigs crawled towards, so numerous that the white floor was invisible beneath the army. He tried to hold himself even tighter, to make himself invisible, a primal desperation to keep them away. But he knew it was impossible.

And just as the horde was about to engulf him, he looked up and saw the silhouette of The Hat Man standing in the doorway. As always, only his outline visible, his wide brimmed hat almost comical if not for the sheer terror that he invoked. Again the only detail visible being those dark red eyes. He screamed.

Then it was 3:00 AM. He couldn’t move. His body was sweaty and the cold air from the open window caused a shiver. He breathed heavily and looked towards the blue screen of the TV. And for just an instant, as if watching some perverse show, The Hat Man was there, grinning at him from within the television.

That summer, he dreamt of The Hat Man often.

At first, he hoped it was a side effect of the marijuana. So he stopped smoking. And still The Hat Man was there. Then, he thought it might be because of the tattered grey couch in his dad’s apartment that he had been sleeping on, so he moved in with his mom. And still The Hat Man was there. He thought maybe it was the company that he kept so he stopped seeing his more toxic friends. And still The Hat Man was there.

Finally, he thought there might be something wrong with him. And truly, perhaps there was. The nightmares had been constant and intense. He had bombed job interviews for lack of sleep. His parents had commented about his disheveled appearance and unkempt hair. He began to fear going to sleep because he knew that in those moments of supposed rest and relaxation, The Hat Man would be there.

So he visited a therapist.

The Therapist had been nice enough. For the first time in his life he told another person about The Hat Man. The Therapist had listened and asked questions in a soft, nonjudgmental voice and taken notes. She had been validating and kind and helped him sort through some of his own feelings. It was a good experience.

But it had not made The Hat Man go away.

Then, he had finally managed to put aside his exhaustion to clean himself up, put on his suit and get an entry level job at a large multinational company. It was not his dream job, but it had allowed him to move into his new apartment with his serious girlfriend. In his spare time he saw his friends, went on vacations and worked on his art. Life was good.

And just as abruptly as he had appeared, The Hat Man had abruptly vanished.

Now, rapidly approaching middle age, The Hat Man had returned once again. After several years, he and his girlfriend had broken up. His friends had gotten married, moved away and had kids. He didn’t like to think about it, but in his weaker moments, when alone in the evening, the depth of his loneliness would dawn on him.

Those thoughts were usually banished with a shot of whiskey and some mindless television.

He still worked for the same company and was comfortable in the monotony of middle management. He had accepted his lot in life, as many do with age. He now knew that he would not have a great impact on the world. He would not invent the cure for cancer or revolutionize the way we communicate. He would not be the next Michelangelo or Elvis. He would not even become a fireman or paramedic, one of those everyday and too often unsung heroes. Gone were his dreams of being the next Stan Lee or Alan Moore. Truthfully, he could not even remember the last time he had even drawn or written anything (beyond of course, the mandatory emails to colleagues).

But he was comfortable.

He had his condo, his car and all of the creature comforts he could need. And the wisdom of age had allowed him to jettison his childish fantasies in favor of more realistic life goals.

But now, in this cold comfort, The Hat Man had returned.

When he slept he found himself in a dark warehouse. Around him a loud creaking, as if a large tree branch were swaying in a winter wind and might fall at any moment. He could not move, but around him he saw loved ones pass by. His mother and father, looking him up and down with a cold disappointment. His ex-girlfriend, gently shaking her head with indifference. His best friends that he had not seen in six months barely looked at him, pure unadulterated scorn in their eyes.

The army continued. Everyone he had ever cared about passed him by. No one said a word, the only sound was that slow creaking, getting ever louder with each passing moment. Every time someone passed him he would look at them and try to speak, to tell them all how much they meant to him. But when he opened his mouth the only sound he could make was a dull groan. He wanted to scream, to cry, to disappear.

Finally, after the numbers of people he knew during the waking hours had dwindled, The Hat Man approached. He appeared to glide across the floor, no legs visible and no sound as he moved. The closer The Hat Man got, the louder he tried to scream, to beg his friends and family for help. But still, that low groan was the only sound he was able to muster.

And then The Hat Man was on him, consuming and enveloping him with the cold, heartless energy of despair and anguish.

Then it was 3:00 AM and The Hat Man was standing at the foot of his bed, staring at him. Just as in his dream, The Hat Man floated across the floor, steadily getting closer and closer.

Then it dawned on him: this creature was all of his failures and misgivings. It was that ignored desire to watch one last cartoon or to spend one more innocent afternoon in the backyard. It was the desire to have his family whole. It was the need to fit in and be accepted at school and to be loved by his friends and partner. It was that long snuffed out dream to be an artist. It was the despair at the futility and frivolousness of his job, at the utter loneliness of his life. It was the sum total of all that he had done and left undone. It was his own fears and disappointments made manifest. And it had finally come for him.

The next morning, he did not make it to work. Nor did he the morning after that, or the one after that. He never returned to that place again.