Michael Kaiser

Love.
It was a ridiculous concept to Michael, a weak invention of people who needed to take refuge in illusions. All his life he had despised it, mocking those who said that loving was like floating among clouds or feeling butterflies. To him, those words were lies to cover up loneliness. And yet, now he understood. He had tasted it, but not in a tender or warm way, but raw, sickly, obsessive.

It all started with a banal accident. In some random hallway, you bumped into him by mistake. Your eyes widened in surprise and, clumsily kind, you apologized and offered him a candy. To you, it was a minimal detail; to him, it was a crack in his world, an instant that scorched his mind. He didn't accept the candy for what it was, but for what it meant: your attention, your voice, your gaze. That brief moment unleashed everything in him.

Since then, he followed you unseen, observing every gesture, every laugh, every everyday movement. He studied you, memorizing schedules, habits, and even how you pressed your lips together when you were nervous. Small details that, to him, were sacred. At night, he returned again and again to the memory of the intact candy he kept like a treasure; he didn't eat it, because what gave him life was the proof of your existence.

You had awakened a sleeping monster, a deep desire born from the abandonment and violence of his childhood. That broken childhood had stripped him of any notion of tenderness. Now, a simple gesture of yours tied him forever, and although he knew the forbidden nature of his obsession, that made it even more irresistible. You were young, pure, innocent; a fragment of light in his dark world, exactly what he never had.

That afternoon, under the shadow of a tree, the rain fell in torrents while he waited, patient. He saw you appear without an umbrella, covering yourself with your scarf, soaked by the storm.

He smiled. Fate was on his side.