The Building, part 4
It seemed that Krimm had no blindness. That was his aim after all: to see everything in the city, at once, not missing a thing.
Living under a new regime that had arisen with next to no resistance meant that this was all anyone talked or thought about. We could not talk about it in public, because although it was obvious that Krimm saw everything, it was assumed that he also heard everything, though we had no direct evidence of this.
I thought about this day and night. What’s the one thing that someone who has eyes everywhere can’t see? What’s the one thing that he whose ears litter the streets can’t hear? It plagued the back of my mind like an ongoing riddle.
It seemed like Krimm had thought of everything. We daily heard stories of attempted resistance and subsequent arrests. It even felt like his eyes could somehow see through walls and roofs. There was no escape from his all-seeing eyes; no place was safe from his gaze.
So one day, for no other reason than that my curiosity had grown to border violence, I stood on my front door step and stared at his building. The eyes were in constant motion, as always. A thousand eyes scanned every iota of the city, in constant motion. I stood there, gazing intently at the tower until, I couldn’t be certain, but I swore that one of the eyes stopped moving and locked onto me.
I stared back.
It didn’t move, but looked right at me standing in my doorway.
It wasn’t more than sixty seconds until I saw two guards turn the corner onto my block, walking right toward me. I took a step back into my door when one of them called out.
“Citizen. Mr. Krimm wants to know why you were staring at his tower.”
I took another step back into my home and was about to close the door when one of their gloved hands slapped against the door and pushed it open. He matched my steps — as I stepped backwards, he proceeded into my home. The other one stood in the doorway and stopped.
“Can I help you?” I asked the guard while still retreating back into my home.
He repeated himself. “Mr. Krimm would like to know why you were staring at him.”
I didn’t know how to answer, or what sort of response would best satisfy them. I kept backing up.
to be continued…
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