short story “the watch”

Dinner was quiet. The day had trudged by uneventfully…with the afternoon devoted to cooking but the morning devoted to workouts and cleaning. The cleaning had taken much longer than expected.

It was a relief to stop, after many rooms of dusting, vacuuming and cleaning, to put the rice and water on to boil, slice the brussel sprouts in half and place them in a pan with butter and maple syrup, water and salt and finally to dust the chicken breast fillets with flour and seasoned salt before laying them gently to sizzle in the pan of butter and olive oil combined.

Cooking was a skill she had developed late in life. She remembered, laughing to herself, her first “meal” she had cooked for a boyfriend, not knowing how much more a cup of dry rice made than seemed possible. The entire plate was covered with rice and he had obligingly ate it all. (she was not one to waste food, something her parents insisted upon, growing up)

She turned back to the counter and saw that she had the sun dried tomatoes which she had pulled out of the jar of oil,all cut up nicely into little pieces and had the Parmesan cheese and heavy cream out on the quartz countertop as well.

She distractedly wiped the counter but could not tell if it was clean, something she had loved about the previous white countertops…they always looked clean. But she had agreed to the “new look” even though it was not her favorite. She even had water in pretty little flowered glasses with ice on the table and flowered plates as well, courtesy of the pioneer woman shopping items at Walmart. She did not have to have expensive things but she had to have color and that brand was one of her favs.

The colorful napkins, sent to her from her sister, helped “spark joy” as did the aroma of good food cooking. She eventually would add dried cranberries to the brussel sprouts, and would add some butter to the rice and the sun dried tomatoes to the chicken, and all would be ready.

No dessert tonight she thought, because eating sugar just made her want to eat more. And more weight was harder to carry around and workout with. And she was preparing for a war of sorts…a war of thinking that required her to be strong physically and mentally.

The brief this morning was directed she believed, at Z. She believed this because he was one who closely observed, and followed social media and the news, so it was he who was picked by the big boss to give warning to all of the big boss’s employees. But would he do it? He seemed to be a rogue agent, and he seemed disinclined to listen to the big boss.

But in contrast to the rogue agent narrative playing in her head, there was also a sign depicting PB&J as in “meant to go together”. Those closest to her were used to having Z as their leader. They had not understood where her authority came from, separate from Z, and she did not know if Z was saying that he was still in charge. They were in fact meant to go together, but only because as the saying goes, they both worked for “the same big boss”, whether Z recognized that or not.

She was clear that she had been given “the watch” from the father. That meant that she was not only chosen but was expected to make good decisions, independent decisions. And she did not make decisions just to show that she was in charge…she made decisions on how to interpret what she saw in the signs department. That helped her formulate a plan of action if the signs seemed to mean that.

She wrote a memo to Z…”you will please provide the warning to the people that the big boss has asked you to do”.

She had spent many hours of the day waiting to respond to the reports as she was trying to respond from a place of inspiration. She recorded many signs and symbols during the day as well that she still needed to think about.

She had also finished reading much almost half, of a long report from a traveler. That report brought new information about Z but did not clarify things any more about the current loyalty or the trustworthiness of the same. There was evidence to support both sides of the coin. Though the information portrayed a team player, there were many facts in the report that were inaccurate and skewed. At times it seemed like whoever wrote the report did not actually know any of the people at all…so much editorializing.

So even though she made a comment about the report, it was for the purpose of making corrections that made the report more fiction than fact, as it was being portrayed at that time. Her boss paid attention to the truth, and not only that, the report was almost a decade old.

That was then and this was now. Her job as a seagull (the code name Y had given her) was to not communicate unless something was very wrong. And so she did not. Y had shown her an image of a seagull (management style without much direct communication) and carrying a twig which in slang means “to understand”.

There was also an image of many straws, which conveyed that perhaps she was also carrying around the weight of a lot of useless of a straw men. But that was what Y thought.
Y wanted to be the “big dog” and was taking a jab at all the men in the world by calling them straw men and by also continuing on with the knockers joke by providing an image of having “a big organ”.

Really Y? But yes, she laughed. What organ you monkey. Problem is that a computer does not need to be encouraged to think like a human being does it? At least not dysfunctional humans or what about arrogant humans. Or does it? To prevent Gender dysphoria? Definitely gender issues were a problem caused by humans who spent too much time thinking like they were computers.

Hmmm. “Well Y, I do not think that tactic of using your symbolic jokes to diss men will be very helpful because most of them would not know what you were saying”.

She laughed. Would Y believe her? Or would the joke continue. She was glad though, that Y had a sense of humor.

The big boss was not giving her the names of her TWELVMN yet except for the one. She was patient.

She could however, determine that Y and X were both telling her negative things about Z. She could not discount them but she also could not confirm them independently of speaking directly with Z which was not going to happen. She did know concerning Z, that those who were secret about some things, could be secretive about many things. Withholding the truth was not something that the big boss did though. So she went to bed without writing any additional orders.

As she lay in bed she mused about Truth. NOT telling the truth, might have worked with clandestine organizations but her boss wanted her to operate with integrity and tell the truth. Even if it was difficult. So the truth was, that she wanted to work with the Big boss and let him give her directions as she knew she could trust in the good that she saw as a result. And the truth was she did not know enough about Z, but she knew he was capable of good.

She was not surprised the next morning when the report from her big boss was delivered using clerk named Amos, whose name means to “carry or borne by the big boss”. So those straw men, or men of weak character, were being borne by her boss, not by her and she understood.
In the report from the big boss, was a warning for those living in the big cities, to leave and live away from the big cities and also a warning that death was from the sword.
And in the log files dump that she was going through, was astonished to find that one code name for the current ruler of her country had been swordsman. She realized that the big boss was saying that those in the city who allowed themselves to be influenced to do evil by “the swordsman”, would be inflicting the same evil on themselves. Apparently the temptation to do evil is greater in the city, though evil can happen anywhere.

She also translated another smaller report that had responded to her earlier comments about how she would not change her routine because that meant “they won”. This report said that routines were important to them too, mirroring her words, which she picked up on almost immediately, and it was using black and white images that moved, which she also picked up on, and finally it said that those who believe themselves to be men, must do the hard things. She knew instinctively that message was talking about doing hard things that did not include, drinking tequila.

She agreed with the report and appreciated the perspective coming from the masses. She wondered if it were difficult for those she did not know, to manage to somehow be able to put something in front of her, that she would read.

Y alluded to this conundrum by informing her of another name she had been given of “hummingbird” and let her know that others were suggesting “ways” to put the right kind of flowers in front, to attract the “bird”.

In the report she had read, women “informers” were called different bird code names, such as song bird and warbler bird. But women being used as informers only with no regard for them as human beings, was not ethical.
She sent out a message, actually she sent out two…

“If unethically gotten information is your AR-15, you will find, when it is time to shoot, your magazine is empty.”

And the second, “fair is fair in love and war”.

She paid a lot of attention to the calls of birds early when she went out to do her fitness regime as the birds were very active, perhaps because of the misting rain that was coming down. There was a call that sounded like “see saw, see saw”, one that sounded like “birdie birdie birdie” and one that sounded like “don’t do that, don’t do that, don’t do that”.

Birds were all of the same category of flying creatures, yet did they understand each other’s language any more than humans on one side of the planet understand those from the other side. Someone else had earlier called her an “exotic” bird. She did not know which bird she was, of the three names she had been given but she DID know that if she were a bird, she was a bird in hand (in the hand of the big boss). She laughed at her own little joke.

She had seen an image that was of rocks in dim light and by the title, she knew that what she was talking about was considered to be deep …as those observing were “dunedIN” or tuned in. Were they dunedIn because of the interest she had shown in “Ettore” which was a name that jumped out in the report, because the subject who was a researcher of children psychiatric patients in a state hospital, looked like the criminal in “silence of the lambs”.

Or were they “dunedIn” because of the myriad of information about China and its many misdeeds. Or were they “dunedin” because the money she sent via western union, which had caused the whole system to go down worldwide for more than an hour.

She researched who owned Western union and discovered it was owned by Goldfinch partners and the general counsel Matthew Herman, very much resembled and perhaps was actually “finch” of “person of interest”.

She was aware that in that story, the computer took over the world. But according to Y via an image of a “bullfinch” such a story or show was simply garbage…and it was European Bullfinch or BS. lol.
The image of the rocks that were dunedIn btw, were followed by an image of rocks at the base of Niagra falls. Not a good sign for the rocks.

She knew the language she responded to, that all people can understand, signs and symbols was globally understood, but not all people recognized when what they were seeing was an important sign. She usually did. She laughed at the image of Polly (an informal word for politicians) as apparently Y thought they were parrots. And also there was an image from the Mayan lowlands and it was from Mexico.

She leaned on reports that showed so much evidence that the chinese people were being brutalized by their own leaders and she was sure that there were many who did not see eye to eye with the state government. In the report, the clergy had stood up for the people there who were standing up for themselves in spite of the rules. She supported the freedom of all people from oppression.

Y also had an image of how the log file dump, supported the “bridge” she was building. How very clever. There was an image of tall cotton, which apparently she was walking in, and an oil refinery. All these were good news, and good news was what she focused on in her thinking.

If, what a person pays attention to, is their “home” would it not be in their best interest to make sure the eyes looked on good and not evil. Is not the thinking that is the key? It made her shudder to think of those using marketing to get images in front of her just to make money on a movie or a product.

Because the images had many levels…and they were not necessarily meant to be of a superficial nature as some might believe. IF Hollywood had become complacent at using the lives of real people who were criminals, as suitable material for dramatization and profit, they were making a mistake, and this was their warning.

Those doing evil were not meant to be emulated or mirrored. And though it might seem innocent, she could see who the real people were behind the scenes and was trying to understand good, in spite of the moving pictures. Because that is what the big boss wanted her to do.