Who Stole Vincent's Starry Night?

Reincarnation

Three days had passed since what at first glance seemed a fateful encounter. The wrecking insomnia lingered on him, but the nature of its cause appeared to be different than before. The effects of that previous conversation kept his eyes opened at night while starring at the spider webs on the ceiling of his bedroom. The presentation card held tight between his hands, moisture by a palping anxiety to call this new acquaintance. He had grasp so long to that presentation card in the past few days, the corners of the cardboard had folded from the precipitation of his palms.

It was the call of this breaking morning that invoked in him the urge to dial the numbers. He found at the public phone when he pressed the sequence from memory that his decision might have been made from the very beginning.

The phone rang twice before hearing another voice answer. "Hello?" His gripped tighten on the auricular, it was bad enough he had grown unaccustomed to having a typical conversation over the phone, but he had forgotten all about that awkward moment at the very beginning of a call when one must try to recognize the voice on the other side of the string. Vincent didn't want to deal with any other person and he had decided that if another voice answered the call that his anxiety would be quick to hang up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Josefina?"

"I figure it was you. Your pause gave you away. My clients tend to be more demanding when reaching out. I'll take it you've made up your mind?"

"I have. Where would you like to meet?"

"Your place at 9. I have somewhere in mind and it's very close to yours."

"Ok."

"I expect to see another you when I get there. You don't ask a woman out on a date otherwise."

"It's not a.." but she had hung up the phone by then.

It was still morning with a pair of hours away till midday. There was peace before the ruckus and impertinence of the city chaos awoke in the streets. The chirping of the birds singing could be heard echoing back from the concrete walls and carried by the fresh morning gust. Vincent stood in the street absorbing it all with the auricular in his hand. His eyes steadfast as if they were slowly taking a walk to admire the world. It had been a long time since he had stepped out of his tower at these hours of the day, and the fangs of nostalgia took a bite at his heart, with a commotion of feelings overwhelming the hairs on his skin. He wanted to hate the feeling, but it was placid to be out into the world as it opens its newborn eyes.

Hanging up the auricular, he touched his face, he felt along with this new day, he was also being reborn as someone different. Everything felt different, as such told him his hands when they felt the texture of his face. He could feel the roughness and grease of his uneven beard, hard and entangled from all the accumulated dirt and food from the prior months. He noticed for the first time that his hair had grown and now curtained his eyesight. His nails were long and black like charcoal.

He took out his wallet and with the cash at hand he went to the barber shop he once had frequented a few blocks from his house. On the way there, he sensed the gaze of eyes, people in the street looking at him in odd and disgust, taking a few steps to the side to duck him. Mothers passed by, holding their children on the opposite side of the road.

When Vincent reached the barbershop, he felt a little embarrassed that the people who worked there might recognize him, but it was to his surprise there were no friendly faces to greet him on his awakening. It seemed the people he knew had move on, and so had the world in his absence. At his arrival, the person at the counter had confused him for a beggar and asked him to leave with the swipe of a broom.