literature

Mr Crowdwatcher.

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Literature Text

Sunday, red stains the sky.
Blood had been spilled that night.
A shadow walked down the street.


The infamous Mr Crowdwatcher had seen the whole thing of course, he hadn't interfered either, of course. It was not his business to interfere in the matters of the world. Whatever may happen happens for a reason, that's what Crowdwatcher lived by anyway.
His existence, his reason for being, was to document the events of the world, and he did so very well. With apparent ease he could be in multiple places at once, or so it seemed at least. One minute he would be watching an assassination attempt outside of the Vatican and the next he would be documenting a fight in a Far Eastern country that no one could pronounce.
He watched crowds too of course, hence the name, but only when nothing significant was happening.
He didn't just watch murders, suicides, arson attacks, wars, battles or any such death inducing incident either, he watched whatever interested him the most at the time. It just so happened that death was his favourite thing to watch, all the possible ways of dying, the creativity, or lack of, that a murderer may use. Take what had just happened as an example, what was supposed to be a simple mugging had ended up being a titanic battle of sorts. The female victim wasn't about to let some all brawn no brains thug steal her belongings without a fight, and fight she did. Crowdwatcher watched her defend herself with awe. It seemed she was no pushover and Crowdwatcher witnessed her slay the beast of a man in front of her with a rather dull blade which she hastily concealed immediately afterwards. She hadn't meant to kill the man, of this Crowdwatcher was sure, for she apologised profusely to the deceased male and used such phrases as "I didn't mean to" and "I just meant to warn you off." Mr Crowdwatcher felt himself drawn to this woman, there was something about her, something that interested him, so he followed her.

An elderly couple found the dead man the next day, they were on their way to the local store to buy some cured ham when they saw the body. The woman fainted while the man fished in his jacket pocket for the mobile that his son had bought him  just the other day, and called the police, and an ambulance for his wife of course. It took the police just over 20 minutes to arrive at the scene, while the ambulance arrived within five minutes. Crowdwatcher was watching of course, yet he left shortly after to go and check on the woman for the proceedings before him were uninteresting.

Back with the woman Crowdwatcher noticed that she was a wreck, then again everyone else noticed that too, it was obvious, very obvious. She was jumpy, shaking, paranoid and tired, all the signs of someone who happened to have killed someone the night before, at least that's what Crowdwatcher gathered, he'd never followed someone after they had killed someone before, he'd never seen a point. He just leaned against the wall watching her work all day, no one noticed him, no one ever noticed him. He just seemed to blend in anywhere, like he was supposed to be there, like a piece of furniture perhaps. He took a drag of his cigarette and watched her hurry to and fro as she served her customers in the tiny coffee shop that she part owned with her sister.
This suited Crowdwatcher rather well as he did enjoy a good cup of coffee, in fact other than wine, coffee was all he would drink. He stood there smoking and drinking as the woman worked, shook and yawned for ten hours. He payed for his coffee purchases of course, but the young girl who kept his supply of coffee going never was sure who exactly she was making coffee for or where the money was coming from for that matter. Not that she complained about the money, it was always more than the price of the coffee so she kept the extra as her tips for working so hard. That's what she told herself anyway.
As the day came to an end and the woman was locking up Crowdwatcher moved from the spot where he had been standing and stood outside, waiting for the woman to go wherever it was she was going. As it turned out she was going home, she needed a long, hot, relaxing bath, it would help her to get over the whole killing thing. She kept telling herself that, out loud, which surprised Crowdwatcher because sometimes it was like she was talking to him, which was impossible, no one could see him, no one ever saw him, at least that's how it was supposed to be.

Over the next few days Crowdwatcher continued to watch the woman, only taking a break when something big was happening somewhere, like the hurricane that swept through North America, claiming thousands of lives. That made Crowdwatcher smile, not in a sadistic way, he just found it amusing that even though the Americans knew it was coming, they did nothing to prepare for it, they didn't stock up on food and water, medicine and batteries for their torches, they just adopted the "It won't happen to me" train of thought that is so typical of the human race.
After a week of watching the woman Crowdwatcher noticed that he had what he presumed were feelings for her, at least he presumed they were feelings, he didn't experience them very often. He found it curious as to how he could have feelings for her, after all he had never spoken to her, never touched her, nothing. He had just watched her, almost relentlessly. It mattered not though, he could stop watching her at any moment, whenever he desired, besides, who would stop him?
The woman was locking up again and Crowdwatcher was occupying his usual spot outside the coffee shop, waiting for her to begin her journey home. But she didn't take her usual route today, she went a longer way, for reasons unknown to Crowdwatcher, it excited him for he was bored of taking the same old route every day. The woman walked past numerous wine bars, pubs and clubs, many a drunk approached her for she was quite beautiful, then again they might have just wanted to have their wicked way with her. Finally she walked into a quiet neighbourhood, quiet apart from the dog that kept barking, but there's always a dog like that, Crowdwatcher had noticed that.
Just as the woman turned a corner, only a few streets away from her home, she was approached by two men, big men, bigger than the mugger. They didn't say anything, the woman didn't say anything either. The men pulled out a revolver each, the woman pulled out a bottle of mace, Crowdwatcher pulled out a cigarette. No one moved for a while, a siren went off nearby, a plane flew overhead, and the dog had stopped barking, then it was silent. The taller of the men moved first as he shot the woman in the leg, she fell down and screamed in pain as the other man shot her in the abdomen, as she collapsed on her back both men aimed their weapons at her head and one of them said something, "This is for our brother, your murderous bitch." Both men were about to pull their respective triggers when Crowdwatcher intervened, he didn't know why, truth be told he didn't know he was doing it at all. The woman slipped into unconsciousness and Crowdwatcher did... something. No one knows what he did because no one was watching, even the men didn't see what happened, in fact they never saw again after whatever Crowdwatcher did. Once the woman had woken up she discovered that she was in a hospital bed, when she inquired as to how she got there the nurse told her that someone had rang for an ambulance but they had only said the street name. No one was there when the ambulance arrived and no one knew if the caller was male or female, the person who had answered the call didn't even remember hearing a voice.
It was Mr Crowdwatcher who had called, his voice was the same as the rest of him, if you heard it then you knew what was said but you didn't remember the actual voice. Eventually you would think that you had imagined it, or you would just forget about it.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that Crowdwatcher was lonely, even though he was always with people, he was lonely. Even though every person who lived on Earth had seen him, no one remembered him, everyone had heard him at one point or another, but no one knew it was him.
Sometimes, when you look in a mirror you can see him, but only occasionally. Next time you look in a mirror and think you see something move behind you, that's Crowdwatcher moving on to something more interesting. Say hello to him some time, who knows, perhaps he will respond.
This is the short story that I put together for ~Crowdwatcher. I always wanted to write something like this but I could never think of a main character.
I hope you like it ~Crowdwatcher, sorry about taking so long to get it done.

Comments please. :)
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Worst-Nightmare's avatar
Interesting...

...some lucid concept wouldn't hurt. Good work.