The Headless Commuter

When I was a kid, around five or six, I used to see a man in a pinstripe suit without a head in the hallway of our old apartment on the second floor of a brownstone in Boston. He would appear every night, right after my mom tucked me in and turned off the lights. He’d stand at the end of the hallway, holding a bowler hat in one hand and a brass-tipped umbrella in the other, and he’d do this weird shuffle — a sort of two-step, side-to-side dance — moving from the bathroom door to the hall closet, then back again. In front of him, a small, glowing orb, about the size of a baseball, would roll along the floor, leaving a faint trail of pale light like a snail’s slime. It wasn’t scary, just… odd. I’d always been a nervous kid, but somehow, this nightly dance felt normal, even comforting, like a lullaby in motion.

Sometimes, I’d try to talk to him. I’d whisper, ‘Hey, mister, do you like dancing?’ or ‘Why don’t you have a head?’ He never answered, just kept shuffling back and forth, the orb following him like a loyal pet. My mom thought I was just having nightmares, but I swear I was wide awake. One night, I mustered up the courage to point at him and yell, ‘Mom! There’s a headless man in the hallway!’ She came rushing out of her room, my grandma hobbling behind her, but by the time they flicked the hall light on, there was nothing there. They said it was just the headlights from the street filtering through the venetian blinds, making shapes on the wall. But I knew what I saw. I saw him.

As I grew older, the visits became less frequent, until they stopped altogether. I chalked it up to a child’s imagination. But twenty years later, I moved back to that same brownstone, now a renovated condo, and the memories resurfaced. I was unpacking boxes in my new bedroom, which was once my childhood room, when I felt a chill. That night, as I lay in bed, I saw him again — same pinstripe suit, same bowler hat, same the headless silhouette, but now his dance was different. He was moving toward my door, not just across the hallway. The orb wasn’t rolling; it was hovering, pulsing with a faint hum. I sat up, heart pounding, but not with fear — with recognition. I said, ‘You came back.’

He stopped right at my door, the orb now floating beside where his head should have been. For the first time, he seemed to acknowledge me. The orb flickered, and I heard a whisper, like wind through a cracked window, ‘You’ve grown.’ I couldn’t believe it. I asked, ‘Who are you? What happened to you?’ The orb pulsed brighter, and I felt a wave of sadness. ‘I was a commuter,’ the whisper said. ‘Every night, I walked this hallway, waiting for the train that never came. I died here, but I never left. You’re the only one who ever saw me.’

I should have been terrified, but instead, I felt a strange kinship. I asked, ‘Why do you dance?’ The orb swirled, and I could almost see a smile in its glow. ‘To pass the time. To keep from going mad. The orb is my light — my only companion.’ We talked for hours that night. He told me his name was Arthur, and he’d been a butler in the building back in the 1920s. He’d been killed in a break-in, his head bashed in, and ever since, he’d been trapped in this loop, dancing his way through eternity.

After that night, Arthur became my nightly visitor. But as the weeks went on, I noticed something changing. He began to fade, his pinstripes losing their sharpness, the orb’s light dimming. He said he felt ‘lighter,’ as if talking to me was unwinding the threads of his existence. One night, he told me, ‘I think I’m ready to move on. But I need you to promise me something.’ I nodded, tears in my eyes. ‘Take my orb. Keep it safe. It’s all that’s left of me.’

As he said that, the orb floated toward me, and just as it touched my hand, Arthur vanished — hat, umbrella, and all — leaving only the faint scent of old cologne. The orb sat in my palm, cool and pulsating. I felt a surge of warmth and then a chilling emptiness. I was alone again.

Now, I keep the orb on my nightstand. Every night, it glows softly, and I swear I can hear the faint shuffle of footsteps, but always fading, like a train pulling away. I don’t know if Arthur found peace, but I know he left me a piece of himself. And sometimes, when I’m lying in bed, I hold the orb and dance with it, side to side, just like he did. And for a moment, I feel him there, headless and free, dancing with me through the darkness.