A Watcher Watches

by Joshua Allen

(Originally published in The Fifth Di..., May 2009)

And so we come to Earth, last stop on our tour of historic

places. If you look out the j-ward viewports you will see an

authentic reproduction of what Earth would have looked like in

its prime. You'll see sparkling blue oceans and several distinct

masses of land interspersed throughout. As we'll be approaching

from the dark side--what the ancient inhabitants of Earth called

"Night"--you'll also see a representative sample of light

grouped around what were once metropolitan areas composed of

several million billion Earthbound organisms, including the

illusive, long-extinct "human," a strange being that claimed

sentience but was unable to control even its basic bodily

functions such as heartbeat and digestion. Though the humans

were granted nominal status in the League in the ancient year

DXI 847, they quickly lost status by inventing nuclear weapons,

which they later used to destroy themselves in war many humans

dubbed "Armageddon," after a legend in some ancient storybook.

Prechipto rotated her second orbital head-module stage-

clockwise until it was upside down. Those fools, they were

 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 2

flying in at the wrong angle, nearly 180 degrees clockwise of

true r-ward. All the continents, the pointy ones, anyway, were

pointing up instead of down. Any school child could tell you the

fallacy of up-down in three-dimensional orientation, but

Prechipto also knew that to experience Earth as the Earthlings

saw it, you had to look at it with the pointy landmasses

pointing down. Down.

Prechipto shook her head as she rotated it back to

baseline. They would pay with this violation of authenticity

with a harsh note. An unseen tentacle probed her ambiguous area.

The He was hungry. She decided to disengage sexual arousal after

a moment's thought. He would have to find some other hims and

hers to share commune with. Prechipto was much too angry. She

could feel the ache of His rejection as she left the crowded

room. He tried to make her feel guilty but she twisted Him the

apple. How dare He.

* * *

Tyson watched the tape a second time, scarcely believing

his eyes. He'd had a feeling, a suspicion that had eaten into

his mind like a still, quite voice--for weeks now--but until the

tape had appeared in his bedroom, on his bed, and tied with a

red ribbon bowed beautifully as though by Martha Stewart, he had

dismissed these thoughts as utter irrationality, at best, or

extreme sexual guilt, at worst. Somehow, he had suspected that

 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 3

someone was watching him when he had sex with his wife, Bridge,

and now he had irrevocable proof. A tape with them enjoying each

other and supplying each other with pleasure in supposed

isolation while someone watched and recorded.

And though nothing specifically had compelled him to do so,

certainly no rational reason and no sense that there were clues

in the images embedded in magnetized plastic strip as to the

identity of his watcher, he kept watching the tape again and

again. And again

The changing pressure and sucking/rattling sound of the

door opening made Tyson jump and clench up all over, quite

involuntarily. He shut the VCR off, looked frantically for a

place to stash the videotape, but realized he had no time. He

leaned back and folded his left leg over right, to try to hide

his erection.

Bridge set her keys on the TV, she was digging through her

purse looking for something, probably something asinine, like

lip balm. She glanced briefly at the blank TV. She had no idea

what he'd just been watching. All he had to do was hit "Play"

and her world would be destroyed.

"We need to run to the store." When Tyson had no response

to offer, Bridge threw up her hands. "We need milk Ty." Ty. Her

favorite way of communicating with him was to treat him like a

child.
 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 4

Except in the bedroom.

In the bedroom, with the lights dim and the candles

glowing, she wanted--needed--every square centimeter of his

maleness to come to the fore. The tape proved this. The tape was

power, bestowed upon him from a nameless source. There was no

question of whether or not to let her see it. There was only a

doubt, a taut little pull on the back of his head, just up

behind the ear, that made him wonder if she would ever

conveniently receive a similar tape. She would know immediately,

of course, that he knew. His power would be sapped.

"Milk?"

She rolled her eyes. "Come on. Up and at 'em, Buster. Let's

go."

She pulled his hand. He let her pull him up, then he

grabbed her and held her. She struggled, but he held. He kissed

her neck. She softened. Without words he pitched her onto the

couch face first. She caught herself and pressed back against

him with the soft curve of her buttocks. Are you watching this?

Even now, are you watching?

* * *

Prechipto waved her hand module over the entrance to her

cubicle and then folded it back into her upper trunk, where it

resumed function as her helium lung. Five lungs for each noble
 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 5

gas that existed on Home. She quickly made the sign of the

Perfect Pentacle over her ambiguous area.

A knock on the door. If it was the Him...

She decided to ignore and instead plugged her anode into

the central banks and accessed entertainment sequences from

Earth's history. The knock persisted, grew louder.

With a wave of her xenon lung-arm the door opened. She

rolled her eyes and disengaged from the entertainment sequence

she'd been watching--an easily popped bubble of excitement based

on codes embedded in the work of an ancient artist--and swiveled

to face her visitor, a young him she didn't recognize.

The him took a deep breath into all five lungs and then

extended all five arm modules on his upper tentacles, a sign of

extreme disapproval. He said, in a tone normally reserved for

children, "With what purpose have you denied the advances of Him

17? Was He not instrumental in bringing you aboard this final

cruise past the Earth exhibit? You realize that once

Deconstruction begins, the Earth exhibit will be gone?"

Prechipto didn't much appreciate the lecture from a strange

him, certainly not one younger than herself. She dismissed him

with a wave of her xenon arm. "They'll rebuild it again, I'm

sure. I don't believe it originated in the Milky Way anyway.

This is probably the third or even fourth incarnation of the

Silly Planet."
 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 6

The him's face spun clockwise once. "Silly planet? Some say

the humans were our ancestors."

"Immaterial," she replied.

"You are trying to pull me into an alternative

conversation. Did you not agree to come on this trip?"

"I did." Prechipto admitted the obvious with a nice thick

edge of sarcasm. But despite herself, she found this him's

boldness charming.

"Him 17 would never force you, He's not that way...but you

are ripe, aren't you?"

"Is that what you are? An agent of Him 17? Or just a well-

meaning citizen."

"My name is Gripplido. I," the him hesitated, straightening

his five legs. "I am in love with Prechipto."

Prechipto dismissed him five times. "You have taken

hormonal fancy, and I am to acquiesce to Hering? Why not simply

inject you with the Lovecure?"

Gripplido put his two arms closest to her up in horizontal

bars of supplication. The little him leaned forward, his face

spinning nervously clockwise and counterclockwise. "I saw your

lecture on the human art of Shakespeare in the Frezznippida

University last year. It was inspiring. I have since learned

Humanese." Gripplido beamed.

 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 7

Prechipto laughed, despite herself. "And what words of

humanese did you learn?"

Gripplido, not yet seeing her mirth, eagerly engaged all

five arms. "I know lots of them. Like 'el.' This word was used

more frequently than any other. My tutor has suggested that 'El'

was a primitive god whom many humans worshiped."

Prechipto covered her eyes. "In one sense this is true.

There was a god named 'El' who had many other names and was

revered. But in this case, I believe your teacher was not

teaching you anything but the word 'the.'"

Gripplido's arms drew back inside his trunk. "I see."

"There is no such language as 'humanese.' The humans were

not like us, they spoke many languages, hundreds even. You are

learning, it anything, Espanish."

"Espanish?"

She nodded. Prechipto had begun stroking the spines on his

nearest lung-arm, despite herself, to comfort him. But more:

something about this young one was arousing. Perhaps it was

simply his eagerness to please. Prechipto could think of many

wonderful ways that impulse could be used.

She stood. "Let us go together and speak to Him 17. We will

together converse and sort this matter."

 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 8

Gripplido nodded in an affectation of an adult manner,

though she could tell that the him had hoped his profession of

love would lead to something heartier than heavy conversation.

As Gripplido exited her domicile heads first, she brushed

his feet, ever so lightly. The him had no chance to look back,

but as Prechipto disengaged the power from her room, she smiled.

* * *

"Tyson." Tyson looked up from the blank TV screen. He'd

just been watching another tape. Them, on the couch. In it,

Bridge looked so beautiful and sexy. Tyson didn't dare sit up to

greet his wife as she entered the room and said, "I'm pregnant."

Tyson wiped his forehead. It came away hot and damp. "I

thought--" but couldn't finish the sentence. They'd been told to

forget about having kids. It's a non-option, his doctor had so

emphatically put it.

"I know it sounds impossible." She sat down next to him.

She was wearing a business suit with knee-length skirt and never

before had she looked so much like exactly what she was: a very

hot high school counselor. She took his left hand in both of

hers. She must have taken his arousal as worry. He wished he had

a mirror. He hated when other people read his face. "But it has

happened."

Now. He had to tell her now. "I'm just so happy."

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He embraced her, pulling her close to his chest, but

avoiding letting his pelvis touch her so she wouldn't know how

incredibly aroused he was, still, from the tape.

She said, "Why don't you go make some coffee?"

He broke the hug. The power, he realized, was gone, and his

erection along with it. He got up and ground the beans for

coffee. Somehow her pregnancy had shifted things again and he

was back where he started. There was only one option. He would

tell her about the tapes. She would be frightened. Someone was

watching them, after all. He would solve the problem.

He set the kettle down and planned out his words until it

started to whistle. Coffee and hot water went into the French

press and the rich, dark coffee came out a few minutes later. He

carried the two mugs into the living room with careful balance.

"There's more." Bridge took her coffee, but didn't drink.

"There's a lot more, Tyson. You see, there were these videos."

"Videos?"

"Of us. Making love. They were emailed to my office. I

don't know by whom."

Tyson was speechless. He opened his mouth, but someone had

robbed his words, his breath, everything. He felt a sinking from

his skull and was certain he would pass out. After a minute,

Bridge touched his back and suddenly his life returned. "How

could you keep something like this from me?"

 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 10

"I was afraid you might react that way." Bridge leaned

back, propping her head on her hand, and folded her left leg

over her right. She motioned toward the television set. "So what

were you watching before I came in?"

* * *

The three of them, together, began to couple. Actually, Him

17 just watched while the him and her became Her. His role came

before and after. He stimulated him and her; they constructed

themselves into something new. He made the product of their

copulation viable. He was vital and inert at the same time. He

was the Watcher. He could be aroused, as His species measured it

(through the scent map that formed in their sensory centers,

which were equally distributed throughout their bodies), but it

was nothing any objective observer would every measure as such.

He was the Watcher. He liked to Watch.

The Watcher directed His attention for just a moment to

Human Home in the view screen. He remembered the real one. He

remembered how he had watched then, before the evolution. He

remembered that he helped people by watching them. Just by

watching, reproduction had been facilitated. Then all those

bombs and all those years. And yet the Watching remained.

He returned his attention to the him and her.

 Allen / A Watcher Watches / 11

The End