The Man Who Watched Himself Die

The Man Who Watched Himself Die

The first snow of the season had come and gone. It was a thin crust on the edges of buildings now. The city was gray again. The kind of gray that blurred the day into its own shadow.

Sam Erriden didn’t leave the apartment anymore. Not since the funeral.

Grandpa usually wanted to talk about old shows, classic cars, and good food. He wanted to talk about things he knew like they were still new. But, grandpa was gone. Grandma died the year before.

After that, Grandpa’s eyes glazed over. He shuffled into his grave.

Neither waiting nor expecting. Sam was simply there. Alone. Idle.

Then, one evening, there was a single, sharp knock at his door.

“One Knock? If it was important, they’d knock again,” Sam thought.

Sam paid every debt he and his grandparents’ had, including funeral fees, student loans, and the taxes on his inheritance. He even paid off the apartment. No one had a reason to knock.

Sam stared at the ceiling. He thought about his grandparents.

They were the last real people alive. Every other face was illuminated by a cellphone. Every other hand was scrolling through an ocean of memes, corporate propaganda, narcissism, and Encrypt Corp algorithms. No one existed anymore. They were memes of the jobs they had and content they consumed. Sam sighed.

Then, there it was. Another knock.

Again? Sam thought.

He opened the door.

No one. Of course.

Then, Sam looked down.

A package? On his doormat?

He wasn’t expecting anything.

Sam examined it. The package was a VHS tape wrapped in brown paper. No label. No note. No name. Only a sticker with three words in red ink: “WATCH ME SAM.”

He stared at it for a long time.

Sam still had Gramps’ VCR, and his old tube TV too.

Gramps meant to sell them. He never got around to it.

Sam connected the old tube television and VCR.

The tape slid in with a click.

The screen filled with static. Then came the image.

His apartment?

Sam felt a chill.

His couch?  No—it couldn’t be.

Same scuff mark on the left wall.

The flickering ceiling fan.

Everything. What the?

Then, a person came into focus—someone sitting on the couch.

Him. It was Sam, but colorless. Depressed. Slow. Lethargic. Sick.

The tape flickered. The Sam on the tape—“Tape Sam”—turned toward the camera—as if aware of being watched.

On screen, there was a knock.

Tape Sam stood up. Walked to the door. Opened it.

Sam watched himself answer his door.

“It’s you,”Tape Sam said, slow and unenthusiastic.

There was a “thump.” Then, another. And, another.

The picture warped. The camera shifted.

Tape Sam stumbled into the hallway. Coughing blood, Tape Sam held his stomach. Blood pooled in the center of his shirt.

The real Sam clicked his remote. The TV didn’t turn off. The tape didn’t stop.

Tape Sam collapsed in the hallway, recorded by an unknown viewer.

The image went dark.

Sam clicked his remote again. The buttons finally worked.

He ejected the tape. His hands trembled as he examined it.

Confused and curious, Sam pressed the tape back into the VCR.

Sam rewound. Sam fast-forwarded. He replayed.

Sam watched the seven minutes of his murder on replay for two hours.

He watched himself die over and over. Never knowing who or why.

Another knock startled Sam.

He dismissed it.

Sam paced around his apartment. He wandered the bedrooms, the old office, the guest room, and finally the balcony. He looked across the city. Then, Sam walked back inside.

He walked into the kitchen and finally back to the living room. He sat on the couch. Taking a deep breath, Sam took the tape out of his VCR and tossed it in the trash.

Sam sat down on the couch again. He looked up, “AI video tape scam.”

The search returned no results.

Then, there was another knock. More forceful. Insistent.

“Who is it?” Sam shouted, annoyed.

The knock banged again.

Sam stomped to the door, angry. “What do you want?!”

He looked through the peephole. What Sam saw shook him.

An expressionless pale man in black leather robes and a wide-brimmed hat stood there. Idle.

Sam shivered. “The Idle Man,” he said, terrified. Sam didn’t know how he knew that name, but it felt old. Ancient.

There was a VHS tape in the Idle Man's hands.

"The soil calls," The Idle Man said in a blank voice, with a solemn face.

In a trance, Sam opened the door.  

The Idle Man handed Sam a second tape. "The plot thickens," he said, emotionless.

As if compelled, Sam marched to the VCR. Put the tape inside.

On the tape, Sam was in a room with no corners. Only an endless wall that turned wherever the camera turned.

Tape Sam seemed to see the wall from his own perspective.

The room in the tape slowly disappeared into a black void.

Tape Sam knelt on the ground. He rocked back and forth speaking in static.

A porcelain hand rose from the ground in front of him.

Tape Sam pressed his forehead against the palm. 

The porcelain hand gripped his face and pulled him underground.

Faces writhing in pain appeared in the darkness. They twisted and contorted.

The screen transitioned to Tape Sam hanging in an unknown room.

The tape clicked. The VCR ejected it.

Sam stared at a black screen.

The sun rose. The sun set. Sam sat on his couch gazing into the void.

Then, there was a knock.

Sam walked to the door.

The Idle Man handed Sam another VHS tape.

Sam marched back to the VCR.

He repeated the cycle: he inserted the tape, watched himself die, then sat gazing at the black TV screen, then there was another knock, another tape, and so it went. For several days, Sam ate nothing. Drank nothing. He watched himself die. He slowly died alone in his apartment.

His eyes sinking deeper and deeper. His face stretching. His skin turning pale.

Eventually, Sam was completely pale. Ghostly.

He didn't know when or how, but he was suddenly wearing black leather robes. His hair had fallen out. His face was somber. Solemn. Still.

The change felt inevitable—like it happened before and would happen again, and again, and again. It was a cycle beneath, above, and beyond Sam’s comprehension.

Sam sat on his couch. Idle. Neither waiting nor expecting. Just there. VHS tapes were scattered across his living room. A few stacks here and there.

Sam stood up. A wide-brimmed hat appeared in his hands. He put it on his now bald, pale head. Then, he walked somewhere. A long black hallway covered with floating screens.

Each screen showed Sam dying a different way:

On one screen, Sam walked into traffic.

On another, he walked into the ocean.

On another, he walked off the roof of his apartment building.

On another, he walked off a bridge.

On another, Sam shot himself over and over.

On another, Sam was in a bathtub. He slit his wrists and laid there until he died. 

On each screen, Sam would die and the video would loop just before his death.

It repeated over and over and over and over.

Sam, now clad in black and wearing a top hat, walked in front of a particular screen. He had no thoughts. He had no feelings, but something called to him.

A familiar warmth. 

Sam ignored it. The abyss he walked spoke louder.

Suddenly, the screens disappeared. A tape appeared in Sam's hands.

In a trance, he walked through the darkness.

His leather boots squeaked and squealed on marble tiles.

Sam was in his apartment building.

The tape was wrapped in brown paper.

Sam knocked on his apartment door.

There was no response.

Sam knocked on his door again.

Expressionless, Sam put the tape on the ground.

He was back in the darkness. Walking through a hall of screens displaying his death.

Again, something he couldn't hear called to him.

Warmth.

Yet again, the abyss was louder, and he marched to a screen displaying his death.

Yet again, the screens vanished.

Another tape appeared in his hands.

Sam wandered through a void. He walked the abyss.

His boots squeaked as he walked through his apartment building.

He knocked on his apartment door.

No response.

Sam stood idle. Waiting. He heard himself pacing inside his apartment.

He knocked again.

No response.

Then, Sam knocked again. More forceful. Insistent. 

“Who is it?” Sam heard himself shout, annoyed.

Sam banged on his apartment door.

He heard himself stomping to the door, angry.

“What do you want?!” he shouted from inside the apartment.

Sam stared at his peephole, holding a tape of his death. He was an expressionless pale man in black leather robes and a wide-brimmed hat standing there. Idle.

“The Idle Man,” Sam heard himself say from the other side of the door, terrified. Sam didn’t know how he knew that name, but it felt old. Ancient. Like he had heard it so many times that it was a memory rooted in his soul.

He held the VHS tape in his idle hands. "The soil calls," Sam said to the peephole in a blank voice. His face solemn. Still.

The apartment door opened. Sam handed himself a VHS tape. "The plot thickens," he said to himself, emotionless.

Sam watched himself return to his apartment in a trance. A never-ending cycle of hypnosis. Somnambulating.

Then, Sam wandered the abyss again.

The same screens. The same deaths. 

The same warmth called. This time, he saw a flashlight on the ground.

For the first time in what felt like a long time, Sam had a thought.

He looked at the flashlight on the ground.

How long had it been there?

How many times had he passed it?

Suddenly, he was in a room with no corners. Only a never-ending wall that turned wherever he looked.

Sam saw a man. The man's name tag read "Marcus."

As if compelled by an unknown force, Sam raised his arms.

Then, he was back in the endless void.

The flashlight was on the ground again.

Sam knelt down in the endless void.

He picked up the flashlight.

It was heavy. Industrial. Scratched. Familiar.

"Marcus," was inscribed in the base.

He clicked it on. The light was blinding.

The beam, brighter than lightning, cut something that had latched on to him. The flashlight felt warm, like a cup of coffee on a cold morning.

Suddenly, Sam was in his living room, surrounded by piles of VHS tapes. His ominous garb replaced by his sweater and jeans.

Flashlight in hand, Sam pointed the strange light at the tapes—as if by instinct. Each tape dissolved.

Then, something happened inside of Sam.

Something he couldn't explain.

He noticed time.

He noticed placement.

He noticed his awareness.

Unease, fear, and panic spread within him.

It was a deep terror he had wandered through a place that didn't—or couldn't exist. It was the unsettling awareness that reality—time and space—had multiple directions; there was up, down, left, right, and... sideways. A direction people were never meant to turn. A direction no one could turn. A direction that had no depth. A direction that went nowhere yet extended everywhere: a deep nothingness that extended through everything.

Sam put the flashlight down.

He glanced around his living room.

The Idle Man appeared. He pointed at a noose hanging from the ceiling.

Sam grabbed a chair. He tightened the rope around his neck, but something wouldn't let him kick the chair.

The flashlight seemed to call Sam's name.

He undid the rope.

The Idle Man stood there. Idle. Neither watching nor waiting. Simply there. Then, he—it—was gone.

Sam shivered at what he had just experienced.

He didn't know how or why, but Sam grabbed his grandfather's old camera. It felt necessary—like putting a sign on a haunted room.

Sam sat in his living room and recorded a lengthy video explaining what he had seen, where he had been, and what happened. He explained the flashlight. He explained a horrific place. A direction of reality that made no sense. A direction Sam instinctively knew could only be called sideways. Even saying it gave Sam chills.

"If you see a man in black, standing idle, ignore him," Sam said concluding the recording. He put the tape in a package with the flashlight.

The flashlight belonged to someone who needed it more than he did. Someone who might need to carry it into places light didn’t belong.

Sam uploaded his video to YouView. He started writing Dark Fantasy and recording it on his various channels as cautionary tales about what 'can' be out there.

Sometime later, Sam sold his grandparents’ apartment and moved somewhere warm, nice, and cheap. He lived his days as a quiet voice in the static—sharing his truths as fiction.

Sam had known the abyss. He walked it. He hoped no one else would ever experience it. Sam created to keep the world from wandering sideways.

Eventually, others like Sam, found him. They shared their journeys anonymously. With their consent, he shared them as tales in his anthologies. Each tale warning of the Idle Man and porcelain hand waiting to be held.

The abyss forever lingered around Sam. Looming in the shadows.

Ever present. Ever beside him.

Neither waiting nor expecting. Just there. Alone with Sam. Idle.

———-

A new tenant moved into Sam's old apartment.

She heard a knock at the door.

There was VHS tape on her mat.

Boots squeaked and squealed from a direction she couldn't see.

The woman, interestingly enough, had a VCR. 

She played the tape.

A woman with her face appeared on the screen.

The Tape Woman stood over a porcelain hand that extended from the floor of the apartment. A man in black leather robes stood across from her. Neither watching nor waiting. Simply idle. "It wants to give. You want to take. Take the hand. Make a pact. The soil calls," the Idle Man said, cold.

The Tape Woman took a knee, and held the porcelain hand. It slowly pulled her through the ground.

The Idle Man turned to the camera. Emotionless, he whispered, "The plot thickens.”