The Brown Suit in the Glass

The house on Maple Street had always been a little too quiet for my liking. I’d grown up there, but that didn’t make its oddities any less unsettling. My bedroom, taking up the entire right side of the second floor, faced the road. At the far end, a door to the bathroom had been blocked by a heavy dresser for as long as I could remember. It was just one of those things we never questioned.

That evening, I was sprawled on the carpet, my thumbs dancing over the controller as I guided a pixelated hero through a cavern. The glow of the TV screen cast long shadows, and outside, the streetlights flickered to life, shrouding the world in a sodium-orange haze. I must have been deep into a level when something made me look up—a subtle shift in the light, or perhaps the faint creak of the house settling.

My reflection in the window stared back at me, but it wasn’t mine. The figure in the glass was older, with a tired face and a brown suit that looked like it had been pressed a hundred times. A brown tie hung perfectly straight. He stood in the middle of the room, watching me with a vacant expression, as if he had been there all along but I’d only just noticed.

I dropped the controller, my heart hammering. The reflection didn’t move, but I saw him—the older me—walk toward the blocked bathroom door. He didn’t struggle with the dresser; he simply passed through it, his form dissolving into the wood as if it were mist. I spun around, half-expecting to see the door burst open, but the room was empty. The dresser stood solid against the wall, its brass handles dull in the lamplight.

For days, I avoided looking at that window after dark. But the image stayed with me, burned into my mind. I started noticing other things: the way the house seemed to sigh at odd hours, the distant shuffle of footsteps in the hallway when I was alone. I tried to tell my parents, but they dismissed it as a child’s overactive imagination.

A week later, I woke to the sound of the bathroom door creaking. The dresser had been moved—not much, just a few inches, but enough to leave a gap. My breath caught as I saw a shape beyond, taller than the shadows should allow. I approached slowly, my bare feet cold on the floorboards. Through the crack, I saw a man in a brown suit standing in the bathroom, his back to me. He was muttering something, his voice muffled.

I pushed the dresser, scraping it across the floor, and the door swung open. The bathroom was empty. But on the mirror, written in the condensation from a hot shower someone must have taken, was a single word: ‘Later.’

I never found out what he meant. I moved out years ago, but sometimes, when I catch my reflection in a dark window, I see him standing just behind me, wearing that same brown suit, his tie loosened as if he’d been through a long day. He never speaks, but his lips move, shaping the same word over and over. And I know, one day, I’ll walk through that door and take his place.