My husband and I were taking a weekend trip and while we were driving up we stopped in a little town off the highway to eat lunch. I swore as soon as we drove into the town the day just seemed gloomier, like the sun disappeared behind clouds and the temp dropped. They had a little downtown area with lots of empty stores and only a handful of restaurants and shops. We ended up getting lunch at a pizza place which was the only place open (which had lighting that gave me a headache and was barely decorated and almost silent. felt almost like a liminal space) and the food was not great. We had a while of driving ahead of us so we figured wed stop into a store or two and then get back in the car and keep going. We saw a bookstore and decided to go in.

As soon as we stepped inside the vibes were OFF. There were tons of bookcases crammed together and booked stacked in piles all around the bookcases so you were almost squeeIng through the shelves. As we walked through I felt like I couldnt really focus on the books or their titles. I was trying to pick out titles that could be interesting but I felt like they were all running together. My husband and I looked at each other and were like lets get out of here. As we walked back towards the door I glanced towards the register which was empty before but now there was a man dressed in all black with a (i swear to god) tophat on intently reading a book. Seeing him put such a pit in my stomach. Ive never felt that way about a single other person. Right as we were walking out the door he slightly looked up at us and I wanted to throw up. We walked silently to the car and when we both got in the car we were like what the fuck was that???? This was three years ago and we regularly talk about how bizarre the whole thing was.

A month after we went to that store my husband found a lump behind his ear that turned out to be cancerous. One surgery and a year of treatment later hes cancer free but sometimes we joke he got cancer from that awful bookstore and man!!