Photograph

 "Ella you know me so well! How long has it been since we last met?" Freda laughs over our coffee chat in a Cafe not far from where I work as a journalist. She just happened to walk by the flower shop before the company building and I recognized her right away. My savior from middle-school!

Freda and I have had a really good friendship since the day we met over a bully fight and I, being the rebel I am, stepping into the game, where we knocked them all together. I reprised that story she had forgotten just now and we both spilled laughter into the autumn air like the nostalgic fall which always brings back memories.

"I guess 10 years? Didn't get to see you after getting into college. I part timely work as a freelance novelist these days. What about you?" My smile beams the glee of old and sweet childhood.

"That's freaking amazing Ella. Always knew you had it in yourself for words." She smiles. "I work as a risk analyst in a firm which has just kind of started growing. It's a new subsidiary of Denil Mills, so kind of a lot busy these days."

"Now that's something cool. Let's take a picture and save the moment." She nods and we both click with a peace sign jutting out the end. I check the photo afterwards and show it to her.

"Amazing." She says smiling. Her cheeks are turning red with the winter air. I glance back at the picture again and something catches my eye before I shut the phone off. When I tweak in closer, there's a figure in what looks like a long black coat and hat facing straight at the picture from the flower shop Freda was at which caught on our back.

"Looks like someone got caught accidentally bombing our photo." I show her the picture but her brows knit together, she tilts her head and asks- "I don't see anyone posing Ella, what are you talking about?"

I shake my head. "You don't see it?" I look at the picture again and show the position with my finger to her. "This right here. The man in cloak."

"Those are bunches of Black Viola Ella. Guess you'll need another cup of coffee." She breaks into a chuckle. I look at the photo once again and the figure is still there. Why can't Freda see it then?

Then it flashes my mind and I look back at the shop. There's no one and really a bouquet of black viola at the right spot where the figure stood in the picture.

"I guess I really need another coffee. See you soon Freda." We both hug each other, make promises of meeting again and go our separate ways. But I forgot to ask Freda what was she doing at the shop. I shake my head away.

After a long time at work, I start packing my stuff and get ready to leave the office. It's late already but, you know, it has always been like that with my workaholic nature. But as I swing the door open to leave of my cabin, I hear three knocks from somewhere. And I'm not hallucinating I know, they were as clear as marbles bouncing on a glass table.

Given my soundproof room, I bet the only noise can come from under the table, right the spot where I sit. Today is fucking with my mind now so i better go and check, as I pull the chair and look down. My heart leaps as I bounce back a little on my feet. A flower bouquet of black violas are resting right at the spot where I was sitting just minutes ago.

My brain goes numb with the lot games reality played with me today and this sudden incident is absolutely no ass joke. I maybe acting dramatic but I don't know how to explain how scared I felt right the moment when I saw these.

After running my mind through all the rational decisions I could make about what happened right now, it seems that the knock could be my bottom heels or the door lock, and the violas might have been there before I came over and I just didn't notice. Maybe sent by Freda which my worker must have seen as trash and left it down here unknowingly.

So I pick up the bouquet and proceed to throw it in trash. Whatever it is, I feel done with today's exhausting day. I dump the bouquet in the dustbin but as it hit the bottom, a white note came off from hiding within the violas. I didn't notice. I bow down to pick them up and when I flip them open its written in...black-

I know black is not your favorite color
But so is mine as red as yours Ella

Who is this? I flip the note and there's no name of the sender. What the fuck is happening these days or I am just high with working 14 hours straight. I need some sleep God. I dropped the note down the trash and went home.

Next day I come, the first I do is check the trash and its cleaned and gone. I ask the worker if someone had came in when I wasn't there or asked to drop a bouquet and she shaked her head in a 'no'. I asked about the violas which she must have thrown away this morning and the same expression I saw on Freda the other day lined on her face when she told me she didn't found any flowers or a note with it in the dustbin. It was all clear before she got in.

Now I'm feeling seen. I dismiss her and pace the room in my anxiety growing and crawling on my body. I have an official stalker? What in the world did Jesus pour on me.

I couldn't focus on work either given the amount of tension I feel in my chest for being seen. Its a weird feeling. What I am seeing, no one else sees or recognizes. I pull out my phone and re-check the picture I took with Freda yesterday. The guy is still there but his positions have...changed.

God his positioned changed from where it was around the shop to the light pole near where me and my table with Freda stood. And as I lean closer to get a good look on his face, I somehow felt like I knew him. The same freckled cheek and thin lips. White face and free black hairs.

"Jonathan?" The name slips out of my lips like a long lost memory I have known so well that I remembered the name long after I've forgotten the thing which bonded us. Jonathan...Jonathan. Suddenly it clicks. He was in the music band with me in high school. We almost talked everyday after rehearsals, sometimes working for a news song together or just talking. I do remember him but what the hell is this? Is this photo possessed?

Sweat beads roll down my forehead and I tense along. After forcing myself to finish the work, I get down to go home right after my hours end. And I felt the same three knocks before I left. As I held onto the door knob which I didn't budge this time, I heave a deep sigh of fear as I heard the three knock again. Now counting to six.

Before I even turned I did feel someone's presence in the room besides me. Mustering all the courage I turn around and before I got a chance to scream on what I saw, he backs me to the door and puts a pressing hand on my mouth. His black eyes boring into mine and subtle smile on his face.

"Ella, at last."

That was all I heard before he banged my head with his fist and my eyes faded to black. Images of a sunny day out on the playground and a blurry window looking out on it reel through my mind like a vintage film. Someone is playing the piano in the back and I'm standing by the window looking down at the open. The piano stops and I kind of turn back to find the boy sitting at the tiny chair playing the piano, now holding a camera in his hand. I heard the click before the darkness consumed the memories.