It first became woefully apparent to me that something was wrong when I developed some photographs.

I’d met Tom at a park and we immediately hit it off. We spent a lot of time together and it seemed we bumped into each other no matter where I went. Sure he was a little crude in his objectification of women, but what man doesn’t have his flaws. As he put it, “I’m only saying what every man in thinking.” I’d be lying if I claimed I never looked at a woman walking by and thought about bedding her. Though not as often as he seemed to.

We took a trip to the city some months after meeting, with the intent on living it up. Until then my life consisted of bland repetative days, work, eat, and sleep. The whole evening I snapped pictures of Tom in the throngs of our wild misadventures. When I got them back from the photomat a few days later I noticed something strange.

Tom wasn’t in a single picture.

The probelm with hallucinations, strong fully formed ones, is that it’s pretty much impossible to be rid of them. You’d think knowing something doesn’t exist would be enough, but no, not for me at least. If anything it made things worse.

Tom is with me even now. Watching, and commenting, over my shoulder as I type these words. He’s become a charicature of the mind of men. Lewder, louder, ever more single minded. He wants only one thing. You know what it is. The thing you warn your daughters about when they start dating. The only thing men ever want. Do I really need to spell it out?