Their waitress, taking another order at a table a few paces away noticed  that the man was slowly sliding down his chair and under the table, with the woman acting unconcerned.

The waitress watched as the man slid all the way down his chair and out of sight under the table.

Still, the woman dining across from him appeared calm and unruffled,  apparently unaware that her dining companion had disappeared.

After the waitress finished taking the order, she came over to the table and said to the woman,

“Pardon me, ma’am, but I think your husband just slid under the table.”

The woman calmly looked up at her and replied firmly,  “No he didn’t.

He just walked in the door.”

The waitress paused, a little confused by the woman’s response. She glanced under the table again, half-expecting the man to suddenly reappear, but there was no sign of him. She hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. The woman’s tone was cool, matter-of-fact, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

The waitress decided to approach with caution, leaning closer to the woman. “Ma’am,” she began again, her voice soft but insistent, “I’m not sure if you saw, but your dining companion—he was just here. He slid under the table and hasn’t come back up. Are you sure—”

The woman’s eyes flicked briefly to the door, and then back to the waitress with an expression that was unreadable. A slight smile tugged at the corner of her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She folded her napkin neatly in her lap, smoothing the wrinkles with deliberate precision.

“Like I said,” the woman repeated, her voice cool and unwavering, “he just walked in the door.”

The waitress blinked, her confusion deepening. There was no way this could be normal. A man had been sitting at the table moments ago, his jacket slightly askew, his posture slumped in that way people get when they’re either exhausted or losing the battle against their own laziness. She was certain. But now, the chair was empty, the woman seemed entirely unbothered, and there was no sign of the man anywhere.

A strange, uncomfortable chill crept down the waitress’s spine. Something wasn’t right. She glanced over her shoulder towards the kitchen, hoping that one of her coworkers might come to her aid. But the place was eerily quiet. It was as if time itself had slowed down, each second stretching longer than the last.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, ma’am,” she said slowly, trying to maintain professionalism despite the unease creeping up her throat. She had no idea why she felt so unsettled, but every instinct told her something was terribly off.

The woman’s gaze softened, but only by a fraction. “Oh, my dear,” she murmured with a strange, almost pitying smile. “You don’t need to worry about him.”

Just then, the waitress felt a brief, fleeting sensation of movement at the edge of her vision. She turned to look—too late. In the blink of an eye, the man had reappeared. He was standing now, perfectly composed, brushing imaginary dust from his jacket, as though he’d been there the whole time.

The waitress gasped, stepping back. The woman’s smile widened ever so slightly.

“See,” she said, her voice carrying a soft, finality to it, “he’s right here. Always has been.”

The man didn’t speak. He simply nodded politely at the waitress as if nothing strange had just happened.

As the waitress backed away in confusion, the couple returned to their meal, a sense of eerie calm settling over them like a shroud. It was as though the moment had never happened. The rest of the room continued to buzz with the chatter of other patrons, oblivious to the strange, unsettling scene unfolding at the table.

The waitress stood frozen for a few more seconds, then walked away, shaking her head. She couldn’t explain it, but as she left the table, the faintest echo of the woman’s voice lingered in her mind.

“You don’t need to worry about him.”

The words hung in the air, like a secret she wasn’t meant to understand.