Little Green Man

From the start, I knew the little green man disliked me.

I never truly understood why, mind you, but I could tell the resentment was there. It was easy to see once you knew how to squint at him, and I looked at the tiny malcontent quite a lot over the months leading up to… the incident.

I had seen the little green men like him just about everywhere, and for the most part I didn't pay them much mind. The man at the corner just outside my apartment building, however, simply radiated a sort of hatred that tied my guts into a knot.

His roundish, featureless green face might have been completely unreadable to most… but I knew.

Oh, I knew.

The more I began to accept the fact that the little green man wanted me dead, the more I started to notice the strange occurrences.

There was an unusual amount of deaths just outside of my building, and I'd almost become numb to it. This wasn't the nicest neighborhood, and a fatal bus collision had even vacated the apartment I had moved into.

I wasn't sure, at first, if the little green man had a part in the laundry list of fatalities just below my window. Now, I have no doubt about it.

The most telling incident, the one I spoke of earlier, occurred right after I had confronted the misanthropic little man.

"Look at you!" I laughed at first, not sure if I'd even get a rise out of him, "I see you there! I know what you're doing!"

If anyone had passed at that moment, they'd have surely thought I was insane. For all they knew, I was yelling at nothing in particular. No one ever seemed to notice the evil I had so easily spotted.

"You don't like me?" I continued, "Well… why don't come over here and DO something about it? Hmm?"

I thumped my chest a few times like an angry ape and scoffed at the impotent little creature. I knew he'd just stay where he was, frozen in that odd little position, hating me more and more with each passing moment.

After a few seconds, its hand gestured at me.

The hand was bright red, in contrast to the little man's green form. I'd seen it before, of course, but not like this. That one hand had been held toward me more times that I would have been able to count.

This time, however, a single middle digit was raised.

I laughed again, shaking my head at the absurdity of the thing.

"That's what I thought."

I sat on the front steps at watched the little green man for a while. Street lights made it almost seem as if midnight was merely mid-afternoon. I figured that since I was clearly in no real danger, I'd might as well make sure HE had as bad a night as I'd been subjected to recently.

"Hey." I called out as a drunk stumbled past me, barely navigating the sidewalk.

He didn't even bother to look in my direction.

"You might want to go further up the street." I called again.

I looked again at the hand, no longer giving me the one-finger salute.

The little green man revealed himself to the drunkard, his incredibly simple "Siren's Song" written just below his feet.

"WALK"

"Sir, I wouldn't-" I started to get to my feet, but it was too late.

The drunk stumbled out onto the slick black street, and within a half-second he had been flung over the hood of a passing taxi cab. The horn honked, the tires screeched, and the wet sound of a skull opening over pavement followed.

I looked back to the sign. The red finger was glowing there once again.

I gave the gesture right back.

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