He Watches

• Tiana Vincent, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2017

He watches. The Prince of the diner. A peeling corner booth, his throne. Silence, his lethal weapon. Neon lights of his 24/7 castle cage unseen goblins, ever lurking the corners of his malevolent mind. Sticky grease gums to calloused fingers as it does to the trunks of his onyx slick hair; with a flick of a tongue it’s gone. The aluminium door chimes, a dangerous glint sparks in his aphotic eyes, a Cheshire smile rips across chiseled stone.

It was hard not to feel like an intruder in the diner last night. They say the introverted have a more active brain process, that we notice and decode situations faster than others due to heightened comprehension.

He watches. Coral lips with strawberry hair stir molten tendrils of his reign. A classic vanilla milkshake graces her lips. He traces the froth on a peach fuzz lip from afar. She squirms, it’s tangible. Longing. As dry as the back of a pauper’s throat, it sits, squeezing its poisonous tentacles into every etched heart on glossy timber tables.

Last night in the diner, no introvert was needed to understand his morbid fascinations. Only me, deeper hidden in timeworn plush seating than royalty himself.

He watches. Grouping together her sprayed freckles in his mind like pins on his cork board of obsession. Little mouse. Senses danger and flees into the malignant night.

How foolish. How naive.

He watches. A smirk decorates his dynamite face. Straightening his feral jacket the prince stalks off into his night. No carriage awaiting. The glint of a camera lens slung over his shoulder reflects the last of the fluorescent diner sign. The goblins have been freed. They tear through shopfronts, shrieking to inky skies. They seem to be hungry for a little mouse. How greedy.

Little mouse is about to understand the ubiquity of him. Though how could timid, shy me even observe the ways of such a hellhound with such great understanding, nobody had ever wondered before. But a week ago I was that girl. I was the mouse to feed his goblins and they devoured the most important part of me. Grandiloquent language no longer twists me into being deceived by his sick charm as the filter in me that feels and hopes no longer stands barrier to the grimy truth. I have seen his battle plans and victories, staged on the filthy linoleum of the diner floor. I know who he is. I now know what he does. Always watching.

And now I don’t want anyone to escape what I did not.