The Watcher

It came to know itself one Thursday afternoon on the banks of an aged canal off Xochimilco in the mid 1900s. It did not know life just at it did know death. But intrinsically the watcher understood that movement around it demanded that it make a not so simple decision.

As it sloughed and faltered off the murky waters it caught the voice off a high pitch wail that in later years it would come to learn as laughter, an emotion that it came to understand but could never truly emulate. The pull towards it was too strong to over come and after a few minutes of struggle it came upon a cheerful boy skipping rocks off a shallow strip of flowing water.

The watcher had no shape but it’s voice was angelic and the boy showed no fear as it approached him and spoke with him in silence and reassured him that it meant no harm. They spoke for hours with no words exchanged. The watcher asked countless questions which the boy easily answered in lengthy monologues that satiated the thirst for knowledge for the new found thing.

The boy in himself was beautiful.. Approximately 16 years of age, he was a lean, a remarkably tall study whose earthy athleticism bore healthy veins, thick brown hair, a strong spine, piercing eyes and vivid wild reflexes. In town he was described by the elders as a coffee flavored version of Billy Budd with a flawed innocence that didn’t serve the new vileness of the then modern world.

The boy’s gaze was notable from the start. One day after his birth his mother who died two weeks later remarked that he could understand him more than every man she had ever known. Others noted in years to come how first encounters left them feeling as if his two eyes read their life histories shockingly. They even asked their children to avoid the child so as not to encounter his knowledgeable gaze. Fortunes were being made every day and men were afraid that their precious and murderous secrets could be read by knowing eyes.

Yet, the boy could not be touched by illicit hands. He was protected, some said, by an aura of spirit Angels who turned poisoned rice water pure.  Or who lost hunting parties the boy camped by the water’s edge.

The Watcher learned these truths as it spent moments next to the youth. At the time it didn’t know that it had chosen a simple base on which three others would be added on and lead it to modern times. Knowing the future was not it’s gift. Not like it was hers.

After the boy skipped a jade like rock onto the water, the watcher touched the base of his neck and a simple strike of electricity moved down the boy”s spine. The spark arose a stir that the watcher understood a thousand times faster than any other person before or since. But the brain is faster than the soul and upon the touch an elemental reflex caused the boy to raise his face and lips open.

It was then that The Watcher would sense what it thought would be it’s only need and took the boy”s essence.

Slowly, the silence it was took on the attributes of the being being consumed. It enjoyed thoroughly the  growth and engorging encounter that manifested it as a man on the human world. As he devoured the body and essence in earnest he looked over the murky waters of these canals and did not understand why it had come into being.

But as he looked at the waters in what later claimed to be his own eyes, his birthday, he thought was the next step to those who had taken on the world and squandered it’s gifts.

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