It was early in the morning, the fog displaying all around the town of Ateju as it was showcasing the lines between reality and also imagination. Mrs Asake, who is a woman 28 years old, walks down the streets. Well, I will say it was an ordinary day, but just at the side of the corner, she saw the sight of something that quickly got her attention and made her stop walking.
Along the street she was taking a walk, there was this particular man that was at a particular vintage shop at the window side who was spying inside. Even though the man is dressed in an old-fashioned style, there is just something not right about this man. Mrs Asake stopped to look in the direction the man was in even though the fog was not giving her the clear view she desired.
The man stretched out his hand to reach through the glass on the other side. Mrs Asake felt a strong urge to come closer from a bit of far distance where she was staying to be able to see in full detail what the man was trying to do. As she begins to move forward, she begins to feel an interest in her spirit towards the scene, which gives her a sign of danger ahead.
"Things are not always what they seem", she quickly remembers what her mother always tells her. It was a particular saying she grew up hearing from her mother countless times, and that always comes whenever she made a wrong assumption about a particular situation her mother was correcting her on. The thought came, but she despised it, even deep within, she was still having that feeling of unease towards the whole scene.
Standing where she was, the fog doing her good began to get clearer and clearer. And for the first time after close to an hour, she saw the man. Looking at his face and looking familiar she was trying to find out where she must have known the man that made his face quite familiar to her.
As curiosity controls her and she tries to find out where she knows the man, Mrs Asake moves closer at a rapid rate to approach the man. "please, for a second, sir," she calls out towards the man to grab the man's attention.
The man, noticing that someone was trying to get his attention, turned around slowly and saw Mrs Asake. The face looks quite so familiar but she was not able to decode where she knew her. "Do I know you?" That was the question she asked the man even though her voice was still a bit trembling and shaking.
The man quite a bit surprised but at the same time trying to play along smiled and responded "I don't think so ma"
But even with his response, his voice was sounding quite familiar to Mrs Asake. Just in a bid to still satisfy her curiosity, she responded 'But it looks like I know you somewhere".
Mrs Asake finally decoded what made the face look familiar. The man looked like her grandfather, but at the same time, she was wondering, could this be her grandfather? But that can not be possible at all, but the resemblance is still there making it quite difficult to deny. "You look like someone I knew, sir", she responded to the man.
Mrs Asake continues to stare at the man. Is he trying to tell her something in his mind? She quickly used that opportunity to stare at the shop using the window beside her. There was something peculiar that she noticed in the shop as there was a reflection that was not of the street she lived in. In that same reflection, she saw that same man standing beside her, the younger version of herself who was a little girl with innocent eyes. She begins to see memories flooding back as it looks like the grandfather study she usually visits every weekend years back. But at the same time, she was doubting, can this be it?
Looking back at the man, she discovers that the man is gone. He vanished as if he had not even been there before. Then the fog, which was clearer, returned and was even much more thicker and blurring than before. Mrs Asake blinked her eyes as she was wondering whether she had been imagining the whole thing all this while.
She turned back to the mirror that she was looking at which was producing the reflection, but the reflection had changed. Both the room, the man and even the image of the little girl she was had gone; they were all gone. Mrs Asake was quite surprised and nervous at that particular moment. "Things are not always what they seem", she murmured to herself at that particular moment.