Who Watches

I haven’t left my apartment in three days. He is still standing out there. The “he” in question has been at it for the past few weeks, though I suspect he has been doing it far longer without my notice. 

A few months ago, while walking back from the supermarket in the evening, I felt him. Normally I’m not very self-conscious, but I felt a weird tingling sensation on the back of my neck, like someone was watching me. I quickly glanced back, and he was there. He was about two hundred yards from me, walking in my direction. Although the dimness of the evening obscured his eyes, I could still feel his gaze on me. I thought it was awkward, nothing more, and continued back to my home. The next morning, while waiting for the bus, I noticed him coming towards my bus stop on the other side of the street, wearing a maroon jacket. Even in the bright morning light, his face was still obscured by the passing shadows of the trees and light posts, though his features were a little clearer than in the previous evening. His face was, in a sense, normal. No exaggerated features or hideous deformities, no scars, no markings. He wore a casual smile, which seemed to grow slightly bigger as his eyes fell upon me. Now, as I recall that moment, I don’t think he was just carelessly smiling for no reason; he was smiling because he knew I’d be there, and his smile grew bigger not because he finally caught sight of me, but because he knew that I saw him looking at me, gained a clearer visualization of what he looked like, even with the shadows briefly hiding his face in momentary turns. His eyes were locked onto me as I hurriedly boarded the bus to go to work. I sat by the windows away from his side of the street. 

As I peer between the curtains onto the courtyard below, I can still see him, pacing around in a small circular path, stopping to either look up at my window or to light a cigarette. He started loitering in the courtyard a few days ago, each time staying longer and longer into the evening. Yesterday, he stayed until 7:30 PM. Although there are other people hanging around the courtyard, elderly people strolling along the stone paths, children chasing each other in the playground, teenagers playing basketball, he doesn’t seem to interact with them, and they, much less so, don’t seem to pay him much notice either. 

From that first day at the bus stop, he would always be there, never crossing the street to the bus stop, and always walking to greet me as the bus started rounding the corner. It became tiresome, his smirk, his gaze, his presence. I thought that maybe he was ill. There were a few people who were mentally ill (or rumored to be) living in the area, and that maybe something about me reminded him of someone from his past, a shade from a previous life, lost in the labyrinth of his steadily maddening mind. He didn’t know who I was, but, recognizing that I bore a superficial resemblance to a past acquaintance, perhaps I gave his declining mind some stability. I have heard before of things like this happening, a crazy person taking an extreme obsession in a random stranger, though in those stories, it was often the result of the normal person giving the lunatic some attention. Although I have never met nor interacted with this man before, maybe that first quick glance over the shoulder was all the attention he needed? Either way, in the stories that I heard about, nothing horrible ever happened, usually the mentally ill person lost interest after a few days. Maybe this man would likewise lose interest, and start following someone else. This thought gave me a little reassurance, until he started appearing near my work place.  

A little more than three weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk, filling out a form for one of the company’s customers, when I decided to stretch my legs and go get a cup of coffee. As I was coming back with a fresh cup in hand, I was suddenly struck with a familiar feeling. I quickly glanced around the hallway, but there was only a couple of women from another department discussing something in an office doorway, neither looking in my direction. I looked out the window at the building across the street, but all I could see were other office workers going about their own affairs. I then slowly directed my attention to the plaza below, and that’s when I saw him. He was down there walking around, but I knew, from the way he was aimlessly walking around, he was scanning all the people there, seeing which face matched mine, searching for an opportunity to meet my gaze, and greet me with a smile. 

From that day forward, I became more conscious about my movements. No longer walking near windows if I could help it, no longer walking across large open spaces with few people around. Of course, I would occasionally take a quick glance out the window to see if I could spot him. Sit in a small corner of a cafe facing the entrance during lunchtime. When it came time for me to return home, I would wait for the five o’clock crowds, so I could swiftly get on the bus without him seeing me. I stopped going to after work get-togethers with colleagues, fearing that that man would abruptly appear behind the bar, or would be the one taking our orders. My trips to the grocery store became more abrupt, as I didn’t want to risk a chance encounter with that man again. 

For a few days, I didn’t see him, nor feel his leery gaze from behind. However, he was making himself known in other ways. While walking to the bus stop, I noticed some of the garbage bags from the apartment building’s garbage chute were torn open, the building’s custodians saying that it was probably some homeless man or dumpster diver looking for something valuable. Whenever I would go to my mailbox, I would find that some of the envelopes had been opened, both important letters and advertisements were affected. Nothing inside seemed to have been manipulated or missing. Was this him or someone else? I didn’t know, honestly, but I shuddered at the thought of this man purposely hiding from me and instead opting to go through my personal belongings; mail, paperwork, garbage, the notion of a total stranger investigating your life, watching your every movement, obsessing over every minuscule detail of my habits made me feel as if I was coming down with a bad flu. 

I started losing sleep, sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, seeing him in every shadow in the bedroom. Why me? What is the purpose of this? How I wished he would stop following me, find someone else to torment! 

I saw him again, while eating a simple sandwich in the cafe by the plaza. His appearance was unexpected, to say the least. The same face, the same eyes, but a slightly different maroon jacket. By this point I had had only a few hours of sleep in the past week, which was notable in my own appearance: unkempt hair, baggy eyelids, the same suit for the past three days. When one is near the breaking point, one can often find a strange courage to do things which they would normally never attempt: I went up to him. 

“Who are you?”, I demanded, as I put a hand on his shoulder, attempting to turn him around so that I could finally confront my harasser. The man, startled by my hand on his shoulder, turned around quickly, his upper body twitching as if his skeleton wanted to leap out of his skin.

“Excuse me, but what do you want?” the man hurriedly said in a frightened manner. 

When he turned around, I realized it wasn’t the my acquaintance, but just another man. Up close, this man’s face bore little resemblance to him, in fact didn’t look anything like him. The only thing the two men shared was the color of their jackets, nothing more. The man was surprised, anxious, fearful, none of the qualities my stalker held: cool and calm, with a perverse sense of confidence showing in his leering gaze. I released my grip from the man and abruptly apologized before turning and leaving the cafe in embarrassment. 

From that encounter in the cafe, I caught glimpses of that man’s face in the crowds of people in the plaza, on the faces of my fellow commuters, in the check-out lines of the stores. I was slowly being driven to an ever-increasing state of madness by this man. How could one human being hold so much power over another, even to the point of changing their own experience of reality? Was he an agent of the government, using me as a subject in an experiment? Or did he belong to something darker, a cult or secret society, looking for new unwilling servants, people who would absent-mindedly carry out horrible tasks for them? I must admit that that idea had been running through my head for a while, that I was somehow caught up in some sort of deranged conspiracy. 

A couple evenings after that embarrassing scene in the cafe, his tyranny over me began to magnify, truly invade my every waking moment. He was in the courtyard, casually pacing back and forth, occasionally looking up towards my window. It was him and no one else, the same eyes, the same face, the same jacket, hell, even his countenance was the same. He must’ve been proud, to cause the soul of an innocent to stumble and startle. In continuing to hound me, he finally found someone to shake by the roots. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to do something. 

This man seemed rather successful in his line of work. His haunting presence, one which was so deftly able to transcend the normal boundaries of a person’s life and poison the well of their soul, must have been unleashed onto other poor souls before me, honing his craft until he was able to misdirect a person’s life towards disaster with minimal effort on his part. He no doubt enjoyed playing this game, his smile one of a quiet pleasure in finding a new victim.

My trips outside became fewer and quicker. I stopped eating as much as I normally do, in order to extend the amount of time between needed trips to the store. I stopped eating lunch at the cafe, I ate little for lunch. I was growing lethargic, my boss and colleagues noticed, inquiring if there was a problem or issue in my personal life. I couldn’t tell these people. What would they think? How can you explain to normal people the black magic cast by a man out to haunt you, to ruin you? Furthermore, some of these people may already be in league with him unknowingly.  

One evening, peaking out the window, I saw a strange break from the man’s usual pattern: he was interacting with a woman. During their conversation, she would also casually glance up towards my window, and nod her head in agreement to something he said. Even more startling was just how lively their respective gestures were, arms gesticulating, laughing, pointing, mimicking, mocking. Due to it being the evening, I couldn’t make out her face clearly, but had a sneaking suspicion that her features shared a demonic aura with him, her own being directed towards other dark pursuits. Finally, I saw them depart from each other, with him walking away, while she waved goodbye and walked towards my building. As she approached the front entrance, the stronger light illuminated her more clearly: she was a neighbor. More specifically, she lived on the floor below mine. I regularly met her on the elevator and in the hallway leading from the front entrance. While I was stuck by this new revelation, deep in the darker corners of my mind a loose plan began to take shape, one which would allow me to strike back at my pursuer. 

My mood brightened a little after this, as a way out of his dark grasp was presented to me. His companion was in the hallway the next morning. We exchanged small greetings and smiles, hers from seeing the disaster her friend was turning me into, and mine from knowing that she would be of much help to me. Over the next few days, I began to follow her, which was rather easy as she seemed oblivious that one of her friend’s victims would dare to even try to outwit them. It was relatively easy to figure out her schedule, as she worked in the same area of the city where I worked, though she often arrived later than I did and left for home a little earlier. At first, finding out her basic schedule was easy because it didn’t interfere with my life or work much. As I started discovering more and more about her life, her habits, this is when my new purpose took precedence over other less important things in my life. I started showing up to work a little later, leaving a little earlier, some days, I called in sick; finally, I told my boss that there was an urgent situation with my family which needed my attention. My boss, being a sympathetic soul, told me to take my time, that she understood my situation, and offered her hopes and condolences. 

As more and more of my time became devoted to the sole pursuit of knowledge of my neighbor and her compatriot, his pursuit of me seemed to ratchet up little by little. I learned more about his schedule, his walking pace, his usual haunts around the city; the only thing consistent about him was his nightly vigil in the courtyard below my apartment window. I soon became adept at avoiding him, knowing just when to leave the house, which areas to avoid, which bus or taxi to take, all in order to avoid his gaze. The more he pursued me, the more I grew in understanding his powers. I felt more invigorated, felt for the first time in weeks that I had finally started to take my life back, even though I still was hardly sleeping or eating, I felt powerful, I felt alive. Soon, I was able to avoid the gazes of people altogether, choosing when and with whom I interacted with, how much time I deigned to donate to them. I once even slipped into my workplace, no one noticing me, no one interacting with me, I even stood silently before my boss without her acknowledging my presence! I was just like him. 

As I watched him walk away into the night, I knew that this was the night to finish the game, the game he set into motion. I haven’t left my apartment for the past three days, I was locked in here, ruminating, meditating, preparing. I needed to steel myself, for this would be my only chance to learn the answer to so many of my questions over the past few weeks: Why?

I know you are frightened. After all, how common is it for one of your victims to turn the tables on their tormentors? In the days leading up to my brief ascetic isolation, I had gained entry into your apartment multiple times. I looked everywhere, through everything, scanned through every piece of paper, looked through all your cabinets and closets, feeling every object and every piece of clothing, scrutinized every speck of dust or leftover crumb, I even carefully regarded the fingerprints on every smooth surface that could be found. I was never able to find anything linking the two of you, but I could still feel his aura, ever present in this hellish apartment, mocking me from some unseen and unearthly vantage point, but not one sign of him could be found.

I started second-guessing myself, thinking myself crazy, that what I was doing and what I was preparing to do transcended every legal, moral, and spiritual boundary established under Heaven. How could I have let this go on for so long, what if this was just one big mistake? What if you two were just regular people, with your own individual lives and concerns, and not adepts of some hideous cabal, where only the darkest of spells are uttered?

Then it struck me: your photographs. Your every smile, your every glance into the aperture, immortalized. You are a mere vessel, a remote receiver for his power! Goddammit, right then and there I now knew my plan would work, it had to work. He never would’ve imagined, in a million years, that I would figure out the hidden rules of his own game! 

He must know something’s up, I can feel him coming here. I’ll finally know why he has chosen me over other, no doubt easier, victims. He definitely will come, I know it, I disturbed his game. He had just left his watch minutes ago, he can’t be very far away now. I’ll make him give me an answer, or he will force me to stop him, I’ll remove that painful gaze and mocking smile permanently. 

I knew he would knock, that bastard! Now, stay silent while I open the door, or else.