I'll Be Watching You Copyright © 2019 by Ralph Robert Moore.

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Published in Black Static #70, Jul-Aug 2019

All we know is what we see. But we have no idea what sees us. Windows let us look outside. But they also allow others to see inside.

The other day we were preparing dinner. I rehydrated some Guajillo chilis. Mary roasted three Poblanos, peeled off their crinkly charred skin, scooped out the clingy inner seeds. Chopped up an onion and green bell pepper. As I dumped the debris from our food prep into the right side of our stainless-steel sink, I ran the cold water tap, reached my hand over to the wall switch, flipped on the garbage disposal.

Familiar whir, solids spinning into storms, but above that whir, a metallic clanging. Fuck. Shut off the disposal, found a flashlight in one of the kitchen drawers. Slanted its light down into the sink's drain. Shining the yellow inspection around the depth of the drain, and down there, to one side of the wet blades, a silver curve. I maneuvered the yellow circle some more, leaning my eyes further into the sink. Squinting, recognized the familiar face.

Tried pushing my right hand down past the hard circle of the drain, but the spread of my knuckles was too wide, hand too big to bully down past the drain's opening. I looked over at Mary, who had pulled a slab of pork shoulder out of the fridge, lifting her chef's knife. I hated asking her to slide her slimmer hand down into the drain, but there was no other way to lift out George Washington. As she snaked her bare hand down, past her knuckles, past her wrist, part of her forearm, my heart was in my forehead. If for any reason the garbage disposal suddenly came on, even though there would be no reason for it to…

She dropped the nicked-up quarter on our black kitchen counter.

Back when we lived in Mariner's Island, a suburb of San Francisco criss-crossed with canals populated with ducks vocally appreciative of the chunks of white bread we'd toss towards their waddlings, we spent a lot of time in bed reading tabloids. Famous actress X cheated on her husband with a dog groomer. Famous actor Y participated in an orgy with three pizza delivery guys. Talk show host Z holed up in a seedy Sunset Boulevard motel room shooting up speedballs with a transvestite. One of the tabloids, Star Magazine, had personal ads at the back of each issue, one of the categories being recipes. We thought, this might be an easy way to make some money. Paid for a listing in the magazine, titling our ad, Recipes Grandma Was Too Timid to Make.

Got a lot of responses, but when we sat on our unmade bed and opened the envelopes, out of two hundred responses to our ad, there was only one legitimate mailing. From a Mrs. Fetty in a mid-western state. All the rest were chain letters telling us something terrible would happen to us if we didn't forward their letters to ten other people.

Mrs. Fetty enclosed, tucked within the center of her folded-over letter, three green dollar bills, which we thumb-tacked to our white wall as a point of pride. Someone we don't know sent us money! (A year later, we had to pull the bills down from their blue thumb tack, when we went through a period where we were low on cash.)

Since she was the only person who wrote us, we decided to customize our recipes just for her. We didn't have a Vegetables section. We had a Fetty Vegetables section. Our recipe for Corn Confetti became a recipe for Corn Confetty. And on and on.

You can be in a jungle, you can be on a subway, you can be online, and what's frightening is when someone or something suddenly notices you. Focuses on you. If you're watching an orange tiger pad through green ferns, that's fine. But if those golden eyes with their vertical black irises suddenly spot you, that's a problem. If a deranged man is sitting in a subway car, spitting chicken bones into his take-out container, and sees you staring at him, you're in trouble. If someone online with greater technical skills than you possess becomes aware of you, starts hacking your identity, that's an issue.

You watching the world is great. A sunset, summer rainfall, squirrel on a limb rippling her uplifted tail.

There is an eeriness when the world suddenly watches you.

It's a great effect often used in horror.

In Kingsley Amis' 1966 book The James Bond Dossier, he talks about how unsettling it is that Bond is escorted by Dr. No's minions into a room that already has candles lit everywhere. As if everyone working for Dr. No already knew Bond would be captured, and would need to have his jail cell illuminated.

In 1998's 'The Truman Show', every decision Jim Carrey makes is controlled by forces outside his knowledge. He's the star of a TV show he doesn't know exists.

In 'Signs and Symbols', Vladimir Nabokov talks about a son who is 'incurably deranged in his mind.' '…the patient imagines that everything happening around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence…Clouds in the staring sky transmit to one another by means of slow signs, incredibly detailed information regarding him.'

In 'When a Stranger Calls', the female protagonist has been getting threatening phone calls; when the police finally trace the source of the phone calls, they realize they're coming from inside the protagonist's own home.

In The Police's 'Every Breath You Take', what starts as a love song turns into a stalker song: 'Every step you take/I'll be watching you.'

About a month after we sent Mrs. Fetty her personalized recipes, there was a worried letter from her in our mailbox. We unfolded it on our bed, ears touching, reading her blue sentences. Why was her name in so many of the recipes we sent? Did she know us? Were we spying on her? And, you know. We felt really bad. Here we were trying to do something we thought would delight her, and instead it made her start hurrying to the front windows every time a car went by. She was scared because she thought she was being watched.

After Mary pulled the quarter out of the garbage disposal, I flipped the disposal on again. And again, that metallic rattle.

Picked the flashlight up from the black counter, slid its yellow circle again within the depth of the drain.

Another quarter.

What was going on?

Again, Mary slid her slender hand down into that drain, green eyes sliding sideways as she nodded, pulled out her hand. Dropped another quarter on the counter.

The thing is, we don't really deal with money anymore. If it's online, we pay with a credit card. In person, we write a check. It's rare for us these days to handle any kind of currency. So where were all these quarters coming from?

And I admit, I started to feel uneasy. Is someone sliding up a window while we're sleeping, sneaking into our home, putting these quarters down our drain? It seemed unlikely, but still…

Like a lot of households, things go missing. Favorite forks, a decorative plate we've had for years, a particular spatula. Has someone decided to pay attention to us? Are we being watched?

I put the nicked-up quarter next to the other quarter on the counter. Flipped the disposal on again.

That metallic rattle.

Flashlight, yellow circle, quarter deep down in the well of the drain.

Mary's wrist disappearing down. Coming back out. Nicked quarter in her slim fingers. Puzzled green eyes.

Put that quarter next to the other two quarters.

Feeling uneasy.

Shined my flashlight back down into the drain. Angling it every way I could. Didn't see any more quarters.

Behind my back, on the kitchen floor, one of our cats meowed. I wasn't sure which one.