The Static Man by Lewi Lewis

He doesn’t walk. He appears like a glitch in the film of the world.

Some say they saw him first between cigarette drags. Others swear it was the second after they blinked and forgot their own names. No one ever remembers him arriving. He just was, like bad news or déjà vu.

A figure hunched in a coat made of newspaper clippings, yellowed and stitched with headlines no one remembers. Tragedies that haven’t happened yet. Ads for pills that cure the memory of love. Placebos shaped like promises disguised as purpose; Obituaries with your name, dated tomorrow.

His face, set deep in a hoodie’s shadow, is a busted TV set, the old kind, heavy with static and scrambled secrets. The glass is cracked, spiderwebbed like a windshield post-collision. Behind it: shapes twitching behind fuzz; a flicker of something that might be an eye, or maybe just your own fear reflecting back at you.

They say he carries a Polaroid camera. And a book. The camera, the story goes, is for capturing moments you forgot you lived. And the book? Wrapped in duct tape and cynicism, it pulses faintly, a journal of things unsaid, things thought too loud, things whispered when you’re half asleep and full of regret.

No one has spoken to him. Not directly.

He isn’t a ghost or a demon. He isn’t a prophet or an oracle. He is something worse: a reminder.

People say he shows up when you’re about to make a mistake that feels like salvation. When you’re standing at the edge of a choice pretending it’s a coincidence. When your past taps you on the shoulder, masquerading as something new.

One guy tried catching him once. Said the alleyway they were in kept looping. Every step brought him back to where he started, except the shadows kept getting longer, and the light dimmer. He ran, but The Static Man never moved. Just watched. Or glitched. Maybe both.

It is said that if you ask him a question, he’ll show you a photo.

Not of the answer, but of the moments you already knew.

And then he disappears.

Right between breaths.  

Lewis is a Utah-based writer and editor who has worked for multiple newspapers across the state. His first book, Silent Masquerades, was published in 2005. His work has appeared in Utah Stories and Free Flash Fiction, among other publications.

Image courtesy of Lewi Lewis