He’s Watching

• Natalie Wolff, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2017

I remember the day I saw his silhouette. The day I realised someone still lived in that crumbling old Queenslander. It seemed abandoned. Empty. And yet there was a dull yellow light flickering gloomily behind the window casting the shadow of a spindly, rigid man onto the curtains. The overgrown weeds and ivy suggested that the only thing living on that property were a couple of rabid rats and crawling cockroaches. But there he was, wiry and crippled.
The rusted spearheaded iron fences and rotting timber veranda made the stories about this man more terrifying. More believable. It was said he once had a family. Then one day they all disappeared and were never seen or heard from again. All except him.
The great old house stood on the colossal block dauntingly beside the barren tennis court. It’s cracked concrete and rusted broken lights showed that it had been many years since it had seen a racquet or tennis ball. The massive wrought iron gate at the front was never open and the overgrown bamboo stood like prison bars along the perimeter of the fence line.
Peeling, flaky off-white paint matched the permanently dirty windows and yellowing lace curtains which hung drearily behind the glass. The drooping roof of corrugated iron and the deserted old car body in the yard added to the impression that nobody had been there for a very long time.
The bindies which escaped the boarders of the house and spilled out onto the footpath stopped anyone walking by barefoot. Yet there was always the constant feeling that someone, somewhere beyond that bamboo was watching you, even if you couldn’t see them.