The Watch (English language creative writing)
A while back I bought a gun from a man who stole a mustang. He sold it cheaply: hundred bucks for A Browning 9x19mm Grande Puissance. Hard black plastic handle – cold to touch, black metallic covers the barrel and the heaviness weighs my hand down as I hold it under my coat, carry it to my car and place it on the passenger seat. A criminal – cold, alone it stays still. I drive fast, imagining the scenarios where my trusty weapon would be used. Trapping a burglar, stopping a murderer. I take it to my house, hide it under the bathroom sink – and never speak of it to my two angels.
My abode: so secure and sheltered, it is often one which is of difficulty to find. One of which is so protected it is under my own lock and key twenty four hours a day. My family, like my pride of lions -spellbound by my fantasy boundary. My imaginary line of the strictest limit to the edge of our fence, unless otherwise approved. Strict guidelines set: to be followed accordingly. Blinds open at zero six hundred hours every morning, pulled up to the third stopper on the wiry string: all seventeen in the house except one. This, followed swiftly by waking the children up at the exact precise time as of when the blinds are raised, so they are able to carry out their chores in austere time ps of fifteen minute bursts.
Following this: the children head to school, and I take my place on the antique grey aged rocking chair in front of the porch window, draw the blind down at exactly zero eight hundred hours and watch as the slender young girls and broad young men outside cross the only way to the secondary school placed two hundred and fifty six meters down the avenue.
Although it may seem a disgusting habit, if you truly took the time to understand the utter belief I have in this art, then you surely would understand the necessity of it. For I do not spy on the children. I do not seek to harm their innocent bodies, or to even make an attempt to frighten or threaten them. All I seek for them is their safety, and for that one obligation to stay out of harm’s way. I spy only upon a small yellow house, a mere nineteen meters from my very residence. Inside this small house, gleaming with fake satisfaction and false contentment. Hiding behind the sunshine beaming from the walls of the bunkers’ exterior lives a man. This man, I have observed for many months now, and have found that his main priority is to stay hidden in the gloom of the shadows, behind his window. This window, like a mirror reflects myself. he follows the same routine as me by staring out of his window when my children step out of the door, but for different reasons these glares are seen. He, for different reasons from my speculation lusts for the young. Like a cheetah, he prays on weak, girls, only just becoming of age.
The intensity has grown, focusing upon him daily. His routine has changed; he starts to water his grass at zero seven hundred hours every morning, and stays there on his lawn for approximately eighty minutes, so he can catch the paper girls attention each morning. The children grow suspicious: I tell them its for their safety. My main concern my daughter: Jenny, a simple thirteen year old. Dark chocolate brown long hair with innocent mossy eyes. Slim and tall, his favourite. He spies on her: I can see it. in the evening when she is allowed out for an hour to visit the park, or to visit her dear acquaintance Jona who lives in the next avenue. I watch him watch her as she skips nightly to her play date – strict instructions to be home for bed at twenty hundred hours.
Months pass. The necessity for him to prey increases and an itch begins to develop. To be scratched, there is only one way. It cannot be let to get that far. Soon the time will come and the itch will be gone: the sunshine will dim and the moon will shine clear upon our avenue.
I saw him again like a ghost to the window: he stood white against the moonlight. I saw my opportunity. For months he had invaded my privacy, tried to separate my intact stable home and ruin he only thing I have left that I can say is real. My daughter not his. I ran to the bathroom. Staring into my mirror I saw sweat dripping from my forehead. I reach under the pipe in the cupboard and find the cold metal press against my fingertips. I rip it away from the tape and cock the gun, It clicks and the barrel is loaded.
Before I realise – I’m out of the door and in his back garden, feet imprinted on his perfectly trimmed grass. I shout. No reply – and again, a clumsy rattle comes from his kitchen as he fondles to find the back door knob. I lift my hand – pointing the shaft directly at his heart, he steps out.
‘Whos the-‘ cut off mid sentence by a bang.
Disbelief is the only emotion I feel. I stand next to my neighbour in cold blood shaking – frozen. Minutes pass – a siren bellows down the surrounding avenues. I try to move, but I cant, cement is weighing me down. Four officers around me – surrounded I drop to the floor, weapon down. I smile.
A cold room – alone, grey. All that remains is a tape recorder, a table and two chairs – one which I, the hero sit on, and another opposite. The blind is down on the window, third click on the wiry string. And officer walks in. standing tall, staring with intention. He doesn’t have a chance to speak before I tell my tale.
‘A while back I bought a gun from a man who stole a mustang.’ I whispered to the tape recorder.
