The Watcher.

When the village gathers at the farmer’s market dawn, and the tents go up a dozen at a time, one tent is added that no one ever sees, with two watchful eyes, staring as he breathes.

Families fill the park. Laughs and joys, the sun is up. Merry go rounds, a Ferris wheel, a

petting zoo, pie eating contests, balloon animals and clowns. Live music and tents filled with food. Toys and prizes and delicious youths that drool - over pink candy floss and greasy food. Such a lovely day for it, they think, what could ever possibly happen to me?

But in that shadow in that tent the watcher waits with idled breath, oh those tasty boys and girls, he whispers without a noise. Not a sound, his watcher eyes, his stare, his growl. The watcher glares and licks his lips and scans through faceless crowds, looking for their helpless pips. Staring while no one sees, the watcher watching and waiting for those who do not watch, those who never see.

A child cries out! The eyes dart right! The little girl, stretches up for her fleeing red

balloon. Her parents roll their eyes and yell then take away their little girl, damn! The eyes narrow like black cacoons. It’s early still, there’s much to do. He takes a growling breath and scans the faceless yet again. The watcher safe and sound inside his tent, his shadowed cowl. Dark and grey a rainless cloud. Creepy cracks the hollow stone, cement and cold. Grey like ashen hearth, grey like broken tombstones jutting from the earth.

The eyes, however, are not grey, but empty as an empty space. Not black or dark, but void, without. Not a single substance or a film, like two dead holes, moving and yet still. Watching to be fed, like a presence lurking at your neck.

A distance up two brothers wrestle in jest. The two little lads laugh and joke, their clothes spoiled with dirt.

A pig squeals from the petting zoo. The boys laugh and cheer.

The eyes they peer through faceless fools and watch as still as still. Their master’s breath, it stops. The boy is young, the brother slightly bigger, older. Their parents idle by, not watching those the watcher watches. A smile wrinkles the sides of his hungry eyes.

How lovely, he thinks. Two hands appear beneath. They rub in hunger and in lust. In the only empty tent, a tent forgotten, never there. A tent that was always there.

A child shrieks! The eyes creep -

They find the baby in the pram, crying for its mother as she chatters with another faceless

mother. She doesn’t watch, she doesn’t see. They never do. No one watches when the

watcher does. A smile creases at the sides of his empty eyes. The hands begin to rub. The

sounds of joy and laughter and the music and the strings that filled the farmers market in the spring all of a sudden flatten and dull like a deep quiet before the cull. They fall into the silence muffled by his spell. His breath grows stronger, snaps and cracks, fills the tent

that no one watches. In and out he breathes. In and out he slobbers. His eyes begin to twist. He’s found his feast. They spin and spin those empty things and listen to the baby’s screams then like a well those empty holes begin to swell. Those endless pools begin to whirl with rippling ink. The baby cries and shouts. A shrill that drowns the faceless crowds and calls to him. Beckons him. Floods and fuels his eyes with a thick black silk that falls upon the baby in the pram, a tidal wave of shadows in the night. Wretched eyes and dribbling lips as his hands unfold and flinch. Then they reach! Out of the shadow out of the tent. Out like wretched hands of death. Melting skin and jagged bones the fingers crack and twist through faceless drones. The baby screams, its arms flailing, its cheeks flush and its tears falling. His eyes spin faster still, a whirlpool, a storm, maleficent and mad, salacious and twisted! Miiiine! His breath snarls and rumbles and shakes. Cavernous and wet his breath, he can almost taste that death. It’s within his reach he stretches. Fingers crawl against the pram. The baby screams! The fingers reach! The feast! The feast! The feast his eyes call for the feast! And then…..

- the mother lifts her child into the air. The tent fills up, a deafening shriek of that unsatisfied defeated decrepit beast. The pools of ink burst and bubble and boil, his breath burns and breaks his lust is broken and then it slowly fades. The black seeps out, the emptiness remains. The hands coil beaten, turn and snap, back in the shadows, back

in the tent. The baby’s cries turn to sobs within the mother’s breast. Sobs soon muffle into sleep and infant rest. The baby lives. The watcher was not fed.

The evening comes, the sun goes down, the moon and stars all spin around and the day is done, home, for now.

Then the morning glows anew and the sun comes up, the festivities ensue. The singers sing and the Ferris wheel spins, the people filter in, those happy families, those happy kids. The sun smiles down at the endless crowds, the popcorn pops and the winners shout. But two eyes appear in an unknown tent, a place that everyone always seems to forget. They start to watch once again. They watch the faceless and wait to be fed. Watching for those who do not watch. Watching and waiting like he always does.

The End.

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