Perfectly Normal and Not at All Unusual

Through the cracks of my blinds, the sun poked. I pushed my heavy floral comforter off my body, and the cold air from the ceiling fan stung my thighs. I rolled out of bed the way I always do—slowly, reluctantly—and teetered to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

My day started about as normally as it could.

I scrolled through TikTok while standing at the sink, foam gathering at the corners of my mouth, laughing at storytimes of people in crisis. Bad dates. Public meltdowns. A crazy woman getting escorted off a plane. The woman stood in the aisle, eyes wide, voice shaking with a kind of conviction that didn’t look performative. She pointed somewhere behind the camera, past the rows of passengers and half-raised phones.

“That motherfucker is not real.”

I had seen it before. Everyone had. The internet had already turned it into a thousand different things: memes, conspiracy threads, reaction videos with people pausing the frame and circling random unwitting passengers in red digital ink. But, for some reason, my TikTok algorithm had decided I needed to see it again.

Whatever, it’s just a video. I had thought to myself. People lose it all the time. 

I finished getting ready and headed out, the morning still cool enough to make the pavement damp. My apartment complex was quiet except for the usual 6 a.m. sounds: drunks clamouring back to their apartment alongside nurses just off the night shift, yapping puppies forcing their tired owners from their beds. 

Normal.

Perfectly normal.

I strolled to my morning coffee spot to fetch my daily Americano. The line had been about ten people long, so I allowed my eyes to wander as I waited.

That’s when I noticed the man in front of me.

‘Bygone Days’ via Zhiyong Jing @jingzhiyong

He was tall. Not freakishly tall, just noticeably. The kind of tall that makes you adjust your sense of space a little when someone turns around. His skin was ghostly pale under the LED lights, reflective in that strange, almost glittering way; think, Edward-in-“Twilight” pale. His breathing sounded mechanical, as if he had to remember to do it. In. Pause. Out. He must have felt my eyes on him, because he turned to face me.

“Lovely morning.” His smile came a second too late, as if his programming had lagged. It appeared gradually, climbing his face upward rather than spreading across it.

“The loveliest,” I said.

For a moment, he just looked at me. Not rudely; just… steadily. His eyes didn’t dart the way most people’s do in conversation. They stayed fixed, unblinking, as if he were waiting for the rest of the interaction to load. The barista silently motioned for him to move up. Without moving his eyes, he did.

Eventually, I ordered my coffee and stepped back onto the sidewalk, sipping it in quiet contemplation as I walked toward the gallery I curate. I had meant to spend the morning planning the arrangement of pieces for the big event later this morning, but I couldn’t shake the stranger’s stare. The way he had felt the barista’s motion without looking. The way his eyes stayed fixed on me. His sickly, pale skin. I know people are strange in the mornings. Half-awake, under-caffeinated, still buffering from sleep. But the more I replayed the moment in my head, the less it behaved like a normal memory. It felt wrong. 

“L’attesa” via Max Martino

The city was fully awake now. Cars rolled past in slow lines, storefronts unlocked their doors, and a butcher hosed down the sidewalk outside a grocery store with the quiet focus of someone who had done it every morning for twenty years.

The water ran blood red. 

“Carved up another cow! Forgive the mess,” he chortled, giving the hose a casual shake.

But it wasn’t the pavement that was stained. It was the water itself. It flowed straight from the spout in a viscous, red, metallic-looking stream, thick as corn syrup, splattering against the sidewalk like a nicked femoral vein. For a second, I just stood there, watching it pool around the storm drain, expecting, hoping it would thin out into something clearer. The butcher didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he did and didn’t care. A woman pushing a stroller stepped right through it. Her sneakers came out clean. I closed my eyes hard, and the water returned to its normal state. 

Normal.

Perfectly normal. 

“Upside Down” via @Itsallinsideus

I took a deep breath and walked until I reached the gallery. I unlocked the door. The room was filled with that soft, sterile brightness that makes every painting look slightly more important than it probably is. Today, after all, was our first big event. A new collection, a crowd of collectors, donors and pretentious people. One by one, the paintings emerged, abstract shapes, warped portraits… I hung them carefully, stepped back, adjusted, stepped back again. My boss arrived first. 

“Big day!” she chirped. Her eyes were dark brown instead of their usual deep blue. Soon, the gallery filled the way galleries always do: slow trickles of well-dressed strangers pretending to look thoughtfully at things. Someone laughed too loudly, too unnaturally. Someone tilted their head at a full ninety-degree angle.

Normal.

Perfectly normal.

Oil Painting via Sally Ryan @sallyryan_artist

Two women repeated the same sentence. A man gasped at nothing. You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. Art people are strange.

Then I saw him.

The man from the coffee shop stood near the back wall: tall, pale, perfectly still. Not looking at the art; looking at me. My chest tightened. Before I even realized I was moving, I stepped forward. A few guests turned toward me. I didn’t even realize I had started wailing.

“That motherfucker-”

I could feel every pair of eyes turning toward me. More eyes than I knew were in that room. My finger trembled, aimed directly at him.

“-that motherfucker right there is not real,” I screamed.

Across the room, three phones lifted into the air. And suddenly, horribly, I understood. Tomorrow morning, somewhere, someone would be brushing their teeth. Scrolling. 

Laughing at a stranger melting down in public.

Strike out,
Writer: Elle Powers
Editor: Olivia Evans

Elle (L) Powers, possibly but not provably related to Austin, is an editorial writer for Strike Magazine GNV. She’s usually farming content for her digital Instagram at The Salty Dog or making a pretentious remark about film versus digital photography. Want to talk music, books, or the art of the perfect Instagram post, or just need someone to commiserate with about law school decisions? Find her at Dog, @elle__powers, or spot yourself candidly on @ellesdigidiary.