[ WP ] Something has been watching you and following you your whole life . You are full at aware but never told anyone because they would think you were crazy . It has never tried to talk to you or harm you , but today you finally try to see what it wants .

The same man. Always the same. Ever youthful, yet weary beyond his years, weary beyond mine even. His was the only face I could remember so clearly, so perfectly to rival even a photograph, because I had seen it every waking hour of my life. Sometimes he would just stare, stood dead centre of my view, sometimes he would occupy himself in my peripheries. I witnessed him meditating, or perhaps praying, on numerous occasions. At first, I was scared beyond measure, children do not react well to strangers, but then I realised he was completely inert. An ever present monolith, never aging, never reacting, simply being. He would move to avoid my touch, turn away to evade speech, and simply disappear amongst crowds. The aquiline nose, strong jaw, sunken eyes - an odd shade of green - and defined cheeks gave the visage a look of nobility, a king perhaps. But his skin, a shade of brown darkened by years of work in the sun, suggested otherwise. He wore loose fitting, enamel white clothes, like a nomad of some vast desert. 
 
 He had never smiled, until today. I could only imagine he grew careless, unaware I was watching. I dismissed the thought. Then, an hour later, he seemed to pick something up. A pen. He examined the lidded implement, smiled at it, then removed the cap and examined the nib. He drew a word in the air, perhaps his name. Another few hours and lunch rolled by. He sat opposite me, as usual, watching me eat a bland sandwich, congealed rice from the night before and a tepid cup of tea. His nostrils flared, sniffing the air around him. What was mundane to me was alien to him, an expression of awe at the interesting smells. It was another few hours before I returned home, he again swung the pen to the shape of a word. In the kitchen, the fridge presented a simple ready meal, a plastic dish of heart-clogging fat and empty calories was all I had the energy to make. What was ten years for a little convenience? As the microwave whirred into life, I took a cigarette and lit it. I offered the carton to the stranger, as usual, and he took one, for the first time. 
 
 `` Thank you,'' he rasped. I would have jumped to my feet if I was n't so tired. Never had I put a voice to his mouth. He spoke clearly, he took his time with a mere two words after thirty years. 
 `` I have to say,'' he continued, putting the cigarette aside, `` you are an interesting one. You take your fill of food that sickens you, you poison yourself with addiction, and you occupy yourself with work that bores even myself.'' 
 
 `` Well, thanks, I would shake your hand but your speech did n't exactly motivate me.'' He smiled, was it a response he wanted? 
 `` That's something to add to the list. You surprise me. My silence has been long indeed, as long as you have been alive, yet you do not even ask who I am?'' 
 
 `` Are you some spirit, here to tell me to do God's work? Are you a boogeyman wanting to scare me? A murderer, perhaps, and now you decide to kill me? To be honest, your novelty wore off a while ago. What are you?'' 
 
 `` An immortal God-king? A spirit sent down to you? A guardian angel? The ferryman of the hereafter?'' Even he could not stifle a laugh, the stalker was amused by my complacency. 
 
 `` Really?'' He read my grated nerves and stopped tarrying. 
 
 `` No, I am none of these,'' he seemed pensive, `` I can relate with your work, sometimes, I was a farmer.'' He paused. 
 
 `` I ca n't say the similarities of farming and number-crunching jump out at me.'' 
 
 `` I was a farmer in a vast and barren desert. I could n't provide for my family as the work did not give, the seeds would not plant in the sand, I did not have water for mud. It was some divine joke, I know, to make me a farmer.'' 
 
 `` And what do you want from me?'' 
 
 `` Well, living under constant famine, with little water, my family withered. It was only when war came to the borders that I found myself of any use. My emperor gave me proper wage to kill my fellow man. I enjoyed it. It was too soon before the war ended, and I returned in moderate wealth,'' he brushed away invisible sand from his garb. He went silent, his face expressionless. 
 `` I remember my children, two boys. I trained my eldest to use the sword, you see he was quite dim, slow to the extent that he was not accepted, but he was stronger than even the greatest generals. Cut clean through my sword once.'' A smile had returned as he reminisced. He then fell solemn again, he returned to his inanimate self. 
 
 `` And?'' 
 
 `` And, with my heir murdered and my spirit angered so, I want a legacy.'' The microwave pinged. Done.
