This happened a long time ago, when I was just a kid. My parents and I had just moved

into our new house, and I spotted a neighbor for the first time.

Absolutely, the oldest man I'd ever seen. In reality, he probably wasn't really that

old, maybe in his 70s, but to a 10-year-old at that time, he seemed ancient. I remember

wondering if his skin would fall off of his arm, and onto the ground beneath him. I even

imagined that his skin actually did come off, and he kept having to replace it.

Looking back, I think his children owned the house he stayed in, and they would come

by every once in a while to check on him. But to the most part, it was just him and his

nurse.

His age isn't the only thing I know I've exaggerated in my mind. Both of our houses

sat at the edge of a massive lake, so big that you couldn't see the opposite shore.

The water was always calm, like the lake was sleeping.

The story of us moving in is pretty boring. Basically, all the typical fighting that happens

between adults when they have to move cardboard boxes. I got tired of listening and snuck

out of the house, where he did notice. My purposefully went down the dirt road the opposite

way of the old man's house, just because I was already a little nervous about being

near him. There was another house, less than a quarter mile away, that I planned to just

stroll past, when someone called out to me.

Hey there, I heard an odd voice. In my mind, I thought the old man had already found

me. Thankfully, there was another one that didn't seem quite as ghostly.

Hey, I said, you and your parents just moved into that next house. Yes. Yes, sir.

Welcome, welcome, he said. Your parents are about the first people to really even think

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