The Watchwoman - 11/22/02

It was almost a year ago that evil thoughts chanced to deprave my mind. Instinctual feelings like those belonging to the raw beast of my ancestors dwelt within me that dim autumn night, the fog mystifying all recognition. The smell of ancient debris from long forgotten barrels filled with the same emptiness that swirled in the mist. But the fog didn't prevent the dark gouges in her eyes from reaching out through the street and grabbing my interest. I was on my way to a friend's house when she first appeared, laid out on a crate on the side of the street like a forgotten puppet.

Her appearance was that of a child of ten or eleven years, one who had been struck by a disease of misery. She had a long river of black hair, that closely followed the curve of her shoulder. Her eyes were dotted pearls in a pale swamp of death and directed off in the direction of some delusional festival. She wore what seemed like the blue and black stitched dress of a jester, one who was too twisted to remain trusted by the employer king. She brought a feeling of loneliness to me, a solitary hole sucking in the warmth of familiarity. I was filled with a sense of terror and disgust as I quickened my pace.

I hurried by, for I was late for my meeting (or so I made myself believe). The blissful sounds of a drunkards’ reunion was calling me from that silent suspension of time. After a few hours of forgetting this child in the depths of a glass, it was time to head back to my warm abode, yet as I passed by on that same street, I felt her dark eyes watching. The fog had thickened, and looking over my shoulder, I found her staring at me this time, slowly entrapping me with her hypnosis. All sense of security and hope vanquished, the remaining drops pouring into the rusted gutters lining the streets.

But this time her visage brought sympathetic pity, as if she pleaded for help. The invisible strings, long left in the dust, pulled her corpse up and dragged her feet towards where I stood. I unconsciously had positioned my hand around a knife I kept for my own protection. But once close enough, she suddenly sprouted a smirk that caught me off guard, and in an action void of all thought, I did the deed she had possessed me to do. All that was left was my fogged hatred, accompanied by a deserted monotonous song looming in the still, cold air.

From that night to this, her smirk has followed me. She is always there, standing behind me with the long deep black hair, always watching with that horrible childish smile. Her monotonous singing rings in my ears each foggy night. She follows me with her hollow eyes, skull white face and youthful build. I have tried to live my life as I had always before, as a watchmaker. Yet that solitary profession terrorizes me, for her presence exists in every tick of every clock. Instead, I have now found an occupation as a simple clerk in an eyeglass store. People come in to get their eyes checked, and then I give them a specific prescription of glasses. Yet however much it improves their vision, they could never see that THING that haunts me, that wraps its strings around my heart and tugs whenever it desires.

It seems like every day she gets closer to me. Each day she seems just a step closer than the previous. Revenge is spelt in every bit of her features. I ask her why she must desire revenge but she does not reply. I cannot even escape her in the depths of a glass like that first night. And the decreasing distance between her and me frightens me with a fate that will fall upon me one day.

Awaiting the anniversary of this deed, I sometimes scream out loud at her, trying to scare her away yet I only succeed in frightening myself and inspiring her to follow me more. She chills me; her icy breath constantly envelops me. I want to rid myself of her. To get rid of the light yet audible footsteps she carries. To get rid of her giggles and laughs at my human activities. To get rid of her evil gouged eyes. To get rid of her satanic smirk. She obsesses my mind. A boiling liquid hatred seeps into my veins pumping from the presence of her proximity. My blackened heart beats in odd pulses unfamiliar to normality as the judgment day approaches.

The day is now. As I wake from my bed she is finally face to face with me, smiling and staring into my fearful face. In the process of pulling out of my sleep, I am unable to move to escape her gaze. I feel stuck in a mud of confusion, as I grasp out for something, anything real, but finding nothing in reach. My feet are being swallowed into the shallow tar of the surreal. And I now realize it, that I am unable to move for my own will is no longer existent. I have gained the same miserable disease that I had seen the same day I met that satanic girl. I will no longer make watches or prescribe eyeglasses; I will never again avoid the truth that had been etched into the back of my skull. In the last moments, the few minutes of blackness following death where one’s soul is still on the earth, one comes to certain realizations. It was not her possession that drove me to that constant insanity, that followed me every day, but it was my own puppeteering with my emotions and sight that had made the illusion. I prescribed and fixed my own fate and yet never saw it.

- Felix Bristol, 11-22-02