“To feel like you’re being watched perhaps has the most profound effect when you’re alone; when indeed, you’re sure that no one can be watching you”, Vir read one such Instagram post, which was one of so many similar posts that had flooded into his feed.
“For it is then that you begin to prepare. After all, you will be watched again. Watched. Thought about. Spoken about”, in Vir’s other hand was a ladle spoon. The soup was thickening. Stirring it required more power.
Watched, he wondered.
Thought about.
Spoken about.
And?
“And, nothing more”, the cryptic post ended. No, not nothing. Not after I have worked so hard for it, he tried to convince himself.
Watched, the soup as if stirred itself now; Thought about, the charred rubber handle hardly insulated his palm from the heat; Spoken about, the soup boiled over the broth, onto the stove, and then the kitchen platform. “Shhhit”, he hissed at himself and the mess he had made, as he quickly turned off the burner. It made him nervous. Not the mess, not his ulcered hand, but himself- he saw himself being watched: Vir has made a mess. He blamed the powercut and the dim kitchen light, for blaming the watcher might have upset him.
The entire day, Vir had done all things the way he thought would please the watcher. He had brushed his teeth, shaved his beard, polished his shoes, watered his plants, combed his hair, worn his most expensive tie, practiced enough breathing techniques to stick his belly in when required and especially when not required, had avoided talking to people few talk to, told his work-hours-aware manager at office before leaving late, and made sure to buy organic vegetables he could not afford. He didn’t even put sugar in his morning tea. But this had now ruined it.
He cleaned up the platform with visible grace, hoping- visibly, to the God he didn’t believe in, but perhaps the watcher did- that the watcher forgave him. He could not afford to have chinks in an armour against a world without the watcher’s validation. He did not need to feel the watcher’s presence- he knew he was there. The watcher did- albeit rarely- put efforts into making it clear. His absence even more so, for that left Vir without purpose. Vir had never seen him, but knew exactly how the watcher looked: his mannerisms, his habits, his conduct, and most importantly, his expectations. Vir had never heard him, but he talked to him regularly. Vir knew all his secrets, and he knew all of Vir’s. They were similar almost to the point of being identical.
Vir sat on his couch with a bowl of what was left of his soup. The December winds had started blowing, and his new penthouse on the twenty-fifth floor- into which he had moved into just that morning, just for the watcher, and was as much above his pay grade- was not doing him any favours. Cozying up in his blanket, he turned on the news. He wanted to watch the fresh season of Rick and Mortey, but the watcher would object.
The plane gray walls had no paintings, clocks, or anything that might remind one of anything else. Vir’s mind was enough; They were an active canvas, those walls, with multiple images drawing themselves- he could hear each colour stroke itself across the gray, subduing its calls from the real.
Half an hour into it, a cluster of words from the anchor’s mouth hit him like whiplash. They had lost their intended and original meaning, like most of whatever Vir did. It was then that it sank in: it was finally time, and he could not avoid it. Vir stood up, his blanket pooling around his feet. The season’s cold could do him no harm; it’s more organic cousin was emanating from him. He walked past the television screen, as the noise of the world, a mutated version of its song, disappeared behind him.
The watcher stood right before him, as real as ever. Vir was shivering with happiness. Tears ran down his cheek. “I’ve found you”, he sobbed. “I’ve found you”, chanted the watcher along with Vir as he walked closer to him. “See, it’s all perfect”, he raised his trembling hand, as the tip of the finger touched the icy surface of the glass pane, whereupon was the watcher’s vision- identical to Vir, as was visible by the watcher reaching out as well- his form fused with the city’s skyline- the white of the lights blending into the orange of the rising sun. The vision began to fade into the penetrating sunrays.
Vir reached out for the watcher, who stood behind the glass facade, while the facade of the real world behind Vir unravelled; the concrete twisted into shapes of all that he had ever seen, making noises of all that he had ever heard, and producing odor of all things with a scent that had been in his vicinity- it was beautiful. It was perfect. “And I cannot change it now”, mumbled Vir as he took a few steps back, and ran right through the glass pane.
