The Night Watch

It was more tilting than I ever understood, as I stood outside the bar whose music seeped from the cracks in the half-opened windows, a voice heavy and sickly-sweet backed by a twinging bass -- words stringing a declaration of love to cobblestone streets.

Autumn was not the same that year. It looked the same, the same reddening and crisping of the edges of leaves, the same whispers of the encroaching white of winter. Yet this autumn was different, under the crisp, clean air I felt a creeping, looming hum that in the bare mornings would grip me by the throat, only to leave me still as the morning air would slip through the window I have yet to fix.

Maybe it was that the voices that filled busy cafes now carried a warning, hurried tone. Maybe it was because of the propaganda posters denoting His arrival, a figure stoic and calm, standing regally above cheering masses. Often as I gazed upon his unsettlingly ageless and uncomfortably handsome face, I wondered if he was really born as the Legitimate One that is so adeptly advertised.

His eyes would look at you through the paper, and it seemed as though he knew you, knew your fears and your hopes and desires as those eyes filled you with promises of a healed soul. And, looking at him, you would want him to, you would want him to reach deep enough so that his hands could clench around your heart. Because he was the Legitimate One, and he would fix your worries, and hunt your fears, and seal your wounds.

It was more tilting than I ever understood, as I stood outside the bar whose music seeped from the cracks in the half-opened windows, a voice heavy and sickly-sweet backed by a twinging bass -- words stringing a declaration of love to cobblestone streets. The streets were fairly empty at this time of night, everyone packed inside of bright bars and homes that oozed warmth and the buzz of overlapping words. I stood there, with my eyes trained on the shadows on the ground, watching the lines where the glowing light of the lamppost was consumed by a dusty black. The voice that sung from the inside of the bar grew into a looming rumble, the sweetness drained word by word until there was nothing left but a skeleton of a voice, a deep groan that sang a foreboding and singed soliloquy.

Steps signaled the approach of a figure draped in a charcoal grey coat, walking down the straight middle of the road with a total disregard of basic traffic laws that ticked off an annoyance within me. The figure’s face was indecipherable, shadows cutting his face into sharp features.

“Ever heard of a SIDEWALK, assface?”

It left my lips before I could help it. He stopped dead, face snapping to mine. I crossed my arms in what I hoped to be convincing confidence as he took slow steps towards me. Any hope for retreat was a door slammed shut by my unrelenting pride. As he grew closer his face became enveloped by the light, revealing features to match those that adorned the posters hung on every street. Cold dread washed over me, and my fight or flight response seemed to be stuck in an intermediary stage of borderline hysteria. And though his face inexplicably revealed shock, I couldn't help but expect him to bare his teeth and growl at any second. My most reasonable prediction for his action, that did not include my painful death at his hands, would probably something along the lines of him smirking derisively and muttering something ominous like ‘watch your step’ to further instate, as a double-edged sword, both my inferiority and his melodrama.

But I couldn’t believe my eyes and stood there watching a face that revealed nothing more than a, frankly, stupid expression. His mouth may as well have been hanging wide open as his eyes seem to have retreated into his hairline. It was hard to believe, in this moment, that these were the eyes that had brought down empires and oversaw the lives of millions. He looked at me like a five-year-old from whom I had just taken his toy fire truck. I had never been more scared in my life.

I felt the entrance to the bar behind me, my exit.

“I’ve, ah, got a thing, in here, urgent.”

I ducked through the door, retreating back into the warmth of the crowded room. Then, after standing with my back to the door, I rushed to the window where I saw him still standing, a now hardened expression setting his features back into something that could eat me alive and have me thank him for it. Leaning out, I caught his gaze.

“Sorry about that" I said.

I flashed him a sheepish smile and sunk back into the room, leaving him where the world now tilts differently, in the bitter chill of the autumn evening.