Prince of Pareidolia

Time is running out, and my mind is slipping more these days—or so it seems. I used to brush it off as age or poor sleep, maybe both, but lately, the line between what’s real and imagined has grown faint and slippery, like a soap bar in a hot shower.

After work this morning, I was in aisle 17 of the home improvement box store, eye-balling hollow-core bathroom doors. I picked one that looked close enough—the same size and basic white—and wrestled it onto a cart that seemed determined to veer left no matter what I did.

On my way to the register, I stopped at the lighting section and squinted through a shelf of bulbs, trying to decipher the difference between lumens and watts like I was back in high school algebra. Eventually, I grabbed a soft glow bulb that promised “warmth and clarity,” which sounded like what our bathroom needed.

Our nightly routine is like clockwork and the ticking of the old wall clock in the hallway. The bathroom night light goes on at dusk and stays on until morning.

My night vision isn’t what it used to be, and the light helps me navigate those late-night trips to the porcelain throne without incident. Or rather, it usually does.

But last night, the light was out. Not flickering. Not dim. Just–gone.

Grumbling under my breath, I shuffled through the darkness toward the bathroom, guiding myself with muscle memory and hope. After finishing my business—thankfully without incident, as far as I could tell—I turned toward the sink to wash my hands. The moonlight slipping through the small window cast long shadows, but nothing helpful.

That’s when I saw the face.

It hovered just behind my reflection in the mirror. Pale, round, expressionless. Watching me. Silent.

I didn’t think. I reacted.

With a grunt and a spin, I launched a textbook right elbow, one I used to win bar fights in the Marine Corps and break drywall in my younger years. The face met my elbow, and we crashed backward through the bathroom door.

Rolling, I came up crouching, expecting a further attack. The thud brought my wife upright from sleep.

“What the HELL, Tom?” Mary shouted, snapping the bedside lamp on.

There, half-straddled over what was her work shirt hanging from the back of the door, I blinked up at her in confusion. The “face” was a crumpled logo on a polo shirt.

“No face, no one,” I mumbled, still catching my breath. “Just…just a friggin’ shirt.”

“Jeez,” she muttered, inspecting the shirt. “You practically destroyed it.”

“At least clothes don’t bruise,” I said, trying for a joke.

“That one does,” she snapped. “And now I have nothing to wear that doesn’t make me look like I’ve been in a bar brawl.”

True to her word, Mary didn’t wear the shirt that day. Opting instead for something lighter, she said. Less battered. Less dramatic. But she hung the replacement up all the same.

“That one,” she said, kissing me on the cheek before we headed out the door, “you’re not allowed to fight with. Promise me.”

“I’ll try,” I told her, chuckling. “But if it gives me a dirty look again, all bets are off.”

Rubbing my elbow, I looked at her shirt hanging from the living room closet door and could almost laugh now.

Almost.