The Thought Watcher

Well, this started as a short story, but it's going to be too long to post the whole thing here. I'm going to post the beginning just to get thoughts from members.

have at it...

The Thought Watcher.

Chapter I

I

He sat there, as he did almost every day for the past 20 years, in a beaten up, old, beige lazy-boy watching. Once in a while he would think of getting a new chair. Something simple like the fancy folding chairs he sees everyone carrying over their shoulder on sunny Sundays as they head to the park down the street for a picnik, or to watch one of the many pick up ball games or soccer games that the kids play. "Soccer mom" chairs he likes to think of them as. But why a new chair? This one may look old and beaten down, but it's comfortable, and he certainly isn't worried about what others might think about how he, or his outdoor furniture, look. He's here to watch, not be watched. He would be surprised if many of the hundreds of people that walk by his front stop at 127a redrock st ever took notice of him, and he didn't care...in fact, he preferred it that way. But he took notice, oh yes, he took very carefull notice indeed.

Here came Mr. Charles McGrady now, walking to his apt not 3 doors down from him. Thinking about what a bastard his boss, Mr. Brown, was and how he would like to take the replica of a samurai sword that sat on his desk and shove it right up his boss' pompous ass. His thoughts jumped back and forth from scewering his boss, to how he would like to take Leslie, the cute 24 year old from accounting, into the storage room and force her to give him the blowjob of his life. Things didn't change much for Mr. McGrady. His thoughts rarely strayed to anything of importance. Oh sure, there was the odd thought about what he was going to have for dinner, what ball game he might watch, and very rarely, a thought or 2 about his own family (mostly of how he hated them all), but for him, that's all they were. Thoughts, random thoughts that would not come to fruition in any way. That was the case for most. Some unbelievable, amazing, disgusting, and mundane thoughts, but just thoughts. He was on the lookout for the ones who's thoughts would either turn into reality, or were memories of events that had already taken place.

It hadn't always been like this. Back in the winter of 1987, he had been clearing the snow and ice off his steps, when he took a mistep and tumbled down to the sidewalk below. He remembers it very clearly, thinking that he was going to be ok, not a scratch as his tumble turned into a slide. That's when his head met the lamp post with a quiet thud. He blacked out after then, coming to a few minutes later with a few people standing around wondering if he was ok. Their thoughts filling his head, almost like screams bouncing off the inside of his ear drums. He scrambled away and into his apartment as fast as he could, not understanding what was going on, and shaken from the fall.

For months after then fateful event, he rarely left the comfort and safety of his apartment. The few times he did in the week following his fall, he thought he was going to go mad. Everyone he looked at seemed to be talking in his head. Not normal talk either. It was like listening to someone have ten different converations with themselves at the same time. It didn't take long for him to realize that he could hear their thoughts, no, not just hear them, but see them. This scared him to the point where he shut himself in. Unable to even answer the door if anyone should happen to knock, not that many did.

What drew him out was a chance glance out the window as the mailman was stuffing the weekly pile of flyers and bills in his rusty old mail box ouside his door. The mailbox is still there, but other than flyers for every pizza joint in east Westbrooke, it's not used. He now has to trudge down to the corner to his super box, wondering every time what is so super about going out in the cold, or extreme heat just to bring back the daily # that gets sent to him. As he watched the mailman, who's thoughts eventually told him was named Bill Esters, he saw Bill, in uniform, sitting in his basement, going through mail he had not delivered, but taken home to rummage through. Setting aside the occasional skin magazine, and greedily tearing open anything that looked like it might be a birthday card, or Christmas card, looking for money inside. Ordinarily any random thought he happened to see wouldn't have mattered much to him. However, he had once been a postal worker, and he took great pride in his job. Seeing this young puke defile the good name of a postal employee made him want to throw open the door and punch him right in the neck. Hard enough to make him gag and fall down the steps as he himself had done. It was at that point that he realized, he could do something even better.


[edit on 4-6-2008 by sensfan]

[edit on 4-6-2008 by sensfan]

[edit on 4-6-2008 by sensfan]

Interesting story, as my old film teacher once said about a short of mine "very subjective", whatever the hell that means, I was drawn into the last paragraph more than the others. I like the abrasiveness of the character.

I'm ready for more!
Good stuff!