The Watcher

You come back from a week away, set down the suitcase, and at some point in the next day or two you sit at the desk and open the project file. The work is exactly where you left it. Nothing has moved in your absence. What has moved is a feeling that arrives unbidden, a low pressure across the chest. The instinct is to read this as the work itself calling you back. It is not the work. The work cannot speak. A figure has stepped into the room with you, and he has already taken his seat.

He has been there for years. You installed him yourself, though you cannot remember the appointment. He has no name on the door, no contract, no hours, and he has been carrying out his duties continuously since the moment you put the project on a list. Most men live with him their whole working lives and never notice that he is a separate faculty rather than an essential part of the self. The first useful thing to know about him is that he was hired.