The Smiling Man - The Dancing Man Who Ran Toward Me Grinning on an Empty Night Street
Back then, I couldn’t sleep well.
Lying awake at dawn only made my thoughts worse,
so I developed a habit of going out for walks.
It was the middle of the city, and I figured nothing bad would happen if I stayed on the main roads.
It was around 2 a.m. that night.
All the shops were closed,
the streets nearly empty.
Only the traffic lights changed on their own.
I wasn’t wearing earphones.
The night air was cold,
and my footsteps sounded too loud.
I turned a corner toward home—
and saw someone at the end of the street.
At first, I thought he was drunk.
A man was dancing.
Alone.
In the middle of the street.
It looked like a waltz,
or like he was twisting his body as he walked.
One step sideways, one step forward, a slow spin.
But he was definitely moving toward me.
I crossed to the opposite sidewalk.
Strange people are best avoided.
That’s the safest choice.
But the closer he got, the stranger he became.
He was tall and thin,
wearing an old suit.
His hair was slicked back,
and his face was tilted upward as if staring at the sky.
His eyes were wide open.
And he was smiling.
Not a normal smile.
His mouth stretched across his face like a painted mask—
too wide, too fixed, too long.
A real person can’t hold a smile like t