He is Watching

It happens every once in a while.

A chill will run down my spine, I'll shiver and (curiously enough) I'll feel my nipples get hard. That's when I know he's watching me. Used to be I'd look for him, but he's been around so long that anymore, I don't even glance up from what I'm doing. Used to be I'd try to tell people about him, panic, get questions about why I'm looking so distressed. Used to be I'd pray for his departure and dread his arrival. Used to be I was frightened.

First time I ever saw him I was 6th grade. I was sitting in class. My math teacher Mr. Cross was babbling on about something and I was absent-mindedly staring out the window at the playground as I was wont to during my math classes. That day I was watching the girl's PE class play a particularly cut-throat game of soccer when he appeared. It was odd, because, if he hadn't appeared out of thin air, I hadn't noticed him up until that point, and I sure as hell know that he's not the type of thing you miss. At any rate, he stood there in the middle of the soccer field staring in the window and I felt the searing heat of being looked upon. The first thing I noticed was his lack of facial features besides his eyes. Where mouth, nose and ears were meant to be was smooth skin and nothing else. Upon my years of time spent with the wretched thing I would come to notice other strange physical attributes that only closer inspection could reveal. At this first, chance meeting, I couldn't see his eyes, that glowed fully with an uncolor that can't be described as gray, but can't truly be compared to any other color, and the extra digit on each of his hands. Sitting in math class that day, I tried to ignore him but found it impossible. This tall featureless man standing in the middle of the soccer game that no one seemed to notice. It terrified and intrigued me.

Weeks at a time. Every day. He was there. Broad day light. I asked other people about him and they only scoffed. Therapists dismissed the beast as the product of wild imagination or delusions. I was put on medication and the thing disappeared. For the time being at least. It wasn't till I was in high school that the thing came back. And he's been with me ever since. Not all at once, mind you, he comes and goes as he sees fit, and stays until he goes. There is no constant on the distance at which he appears, sometimes he's across the street, and for one horrifying weekend appeared in the doorway of my living room. Approaching him is out of the question. Speaking to him equally so, as when I attempt to do so, the ability alludes me.

That being the case, our interaction is limited, but we do have an unspoken understanding and it is this: Someday, he will end me. And I get to live until he does.

I want to say something profound

I want to say something profound. I want to be quotable.

50 years after my death, I want a comment I made in passing at a cocktail party to be displayed proudly on middle America's bumper. I want my musings plastered on a poster in someone's cubicle next to the cat that says "hang in there". I want to be inspirational, thought-provoking, clever and hilarious all wrapped up in one convenient package. I want to see something I did being praised and not lay claim to it. I want to be the guy that all the people I hate adore. I want to be the guy that all the people I like hate. I want to be known, not by name, but as the person who said that. I want my words to live longer than I do. I want my words to live longer than themselves.

And I don't want to look like a douche while I'm doing it.