No, I told not a soul. I may have been only ten years of age, but even I knew that confessing to being spied upon by a snazzily dressed senior citizen who flitted into and out of reality was not a clever move. My adolescence came and went, but still I felt no need to 'explain' the Watcher to myself. Lots of things in the world we don't understand. Endocrinology. Airline ticket pricing. Spousal intentions. Life trundles on regardless. The Watcher was just an occasional blip in my otherwise normal existence. Very occasional, very normal. [...]

The Earth revolved on its axis. The Earth spun around our sun. Do you ever feel that you're caught in a spiral? Or that you are the spiral, and that what we call 'right now' is the tip o a stylus, travelling round and round? I did the things people do. I made a little money, I watched youth slip away, I found a partner. I saw the Watcher twice, three times perhaps, per decade. [...] I spoke to him. Told him how my life hadn't tuned out as I'd hoped. He didn't judge me. A thought occurred to me, and I asked him not to go yet. I went to the hallway, returned with my fedora and FBI sunglasses and sat back down opposite him. We mirrored each other, until he took his shades and hat off. Upon seeing his face for the first time, I realised I'd always known who he was. I just hadn't known I'd known. Like all the most important stuff, right?