Window Keeper's Log: The Night the Watcher Touched
The first installment of 'Window Keeper's Log,' written by the window keeper on night duty at Window 3 the night the Watcher touched the glass.
Panel-less this time — just a log.
The first thing that troubled me when asked to write this column was that I wasn't allowed to give my name. Window keepers at the Dimensional Survey Division keep their logs anonymous, as a rule. When I asked why, I was told: "It's less about not wanting the other side to notice us, and more about not wanting the credit to belong to any one of us on this side." That made sense to me. Every night, it's just whoever's turn it is, sitting here.
The 18th was my shift at Window 3. My partner was a reporter from the science desk, and we set out our two teacups side by side, as usual. The Watcher tends to appear around the same time each night, and I assumed tonight would be no different. For the first hour, it wasn't.
What changed was while the reporter was experimenting with dimming and raising the lights a little. The Watcher stretched toward the glass more slowly than usual, but more clearly. Whether it actually touched the glass isn't something anyone can officially say yet. But I'd never seen it come that close before, and I found myself holding my teacup with both hands again — not to keep it warm, I think, but because my hands wouldn't sit still.
When the color drained away, I'll admit it frightened me a little. Though "frightened" isn't quite the right word either. I can't find a better one. After a while the color came back, flickered, and then it drifted off the way it always does. The reporter beside me just kept taking notes without a word. In this job, I've come to appreciate partners who can stay quiet like that at moments like this, without asking anything.
In the log, I wrote: "It was touched from the other side, through the glass." I was told afterward that the phrasing can't be used in an official statement, so the record will apparently be rewritten. That's fine by me. A log isn't a press release. I'd like this to stay a place where all that gets written down is what one person, sitting here that night, saw and felt.
The teacups never once trembled, in the end. I hear a lot about Window 4's giants, but over here it stays quiet. Quiet, and unexplained, we carried one more thing into the morning. Before letting the next keeper clear away the cups, I poured myself one more.
