I have a stalker.
He is covered in black and white fur and has a big, bushy tail crusted with dirt. He’s one of those animals that you usually smell before you see in a heap on the side of the road. Believe it or not, a skunk is stalking me.
It all started at the end of last summer. The first time I noticed him I was sitting on the couch in my living room. I was simultaneously watching a “Seinfeld” re-run and mindlessly searching the Internet when I heard something outside of the sliding glass door.
It was a kind of soft, scratching noise and it sounded like someone was trying to open the door. At first I thought it was my imagination, until I heard it again, and again, and again. I sat paralyzed in my seat as I stared at the spot the noise was coming from.
Slowly I stood up and walked towards the door. Afraid of what I might find (hey, in Isla Vista anything is possible) I pushed back the curtain with a shaky hand and my eyes tightly shut.
I held my breath as I opened my eyes. Nothing was there.
“That’s strange,” I thought. “I could have sworn I heard something.”
As I turned to walk back to the couch I heard it again. I quickly whipped around and rushed back to the door.
At first only the darkness of the night sky stared back at me. I waited and heard the noise again. This time I realized it was coming from somewhere below me. I looked down to find a pair of black, beady eyes gleaming up at me.
Now this was the first time I’d really been up close and personal with a skunk and for some reason I couldn’t move. I stood there for what must have been just a few seconds, but felt much longer, my eyes locked with that of an animal much smaller than I.
With only a thin, cheap glass door standing between us, I felt oddly intimidated. I couldn’t stop staring at him.
My roommate called me from the other room and the skunk, frightened by the abrupt noise, scurried away. I had never seen a skunk anywhere near my patio before, but I shrugged off the peculiar encounter anyway.
A few days later I found myself once again spacing out on the couch. Just as I was about to head off to bed I heard it again.
“Could it be who I think it is?” I wondered.
Sure enough, my little friend was back again. This time I turned the porch light on; apparently that didn’t sit well with him because before I knew it he had disappeared back into the bushes.
Over the next couple of months, every night that I happened to be in the living room he would come up to the door. I was quiet while I observed him; I didn’t want to make the fatal mistake of scaring him away. His twitching nose would sniff all around the patio as he teetered about the concrete.
What was he looking for? Was it food he was after or was he just looking for a friend? Something about the expression in his eyes when he looked up at me made me believe it was the latter.
It’s been a few months since I last saw the little guy and I have to admit I kind of got use to having him around.
And although I’m not positive that he was actually stalking me, the ever-so-tiny narcissist part of my brain told me otherwise. I guess it will always be a mystery.
But hey who knows, maybe he prefers blondes.
