Panopticon

I wish I could think clearer than I do. I wish I could see things better than I do. Sometimes, when you can see everything, you miss the things that matter most.

My job? Seeing. And I see a lot. In fact, it wouldn’t be an understatement to say I see everything. Everything important, anyway. I stare down the screens packed into a small room, and make sure nothing bad happens. Security. Of course, nothing bad ever does happen, but maybe it’s because people know there are cameras, people know there’s a man like me watching these screens. Security theater, they call it. Look it up.

People feared me. Bad people feared me. I guess that made me a good man. But the most interesting thing to me, was knowing firsthand what could make a good man be so bad. Maybe being good was that one thing I couldn’t see in my infinite vision of the company I worked for. At some point, I even forgot what the company peddled. My work wasn’t directly tied in with what the company sold. And we were in a nice neighborhood – my work wasn’t even tied in with crime prevention anymore. Human beings are busy creatures – you need something to do, to stay busy. Otherwise, you just might go crazy.

That’s when people became my work. It started innocently enough – pattern recognition was the first step. The company boss would take his lunch earlier on Tuesdays. One man would go to the washroom without fail at 10:30 every day and stay there for about six minutes. Day in and day out, all I did was watch these cameras. My duties extended beyond that, theoretically, but never in reality. I was never called to patrol the roof, I was never called to talk to people. Do your job. Do your job. This was my job. Sitting, watching people.

People became videos, unfolded before me. Videos became stories. Stories became fantasies. Do your job. I began looking a little closer at the screens. They say the closer you look, the less you see. Soon, one by one, the other screens blurred out until I could only see one at a time. Ten became too many. Two became too many. Only one screen mattered, and that was the screen that had Clara on it.

Sweet Clara. Clara became an interest of mine. Interests became fascinations, fascinations became fantasies. Do your job. Had Clara and I ever met on the street or at the club before the day I found her, I don’t imagine she would have been my type, nor I hers. But we weren’t meeting in the club. We were meeting at the office, and she didn’t even know. How romantic. Her mannerisms stuck out for me first – they way she twirled her hair when she was bored, the way her shoulders would bounce when she giggled. She was so casual. She didn’t take work too seriously. And yet she wasn’t overly flirty, never making the office boys pant after her like a teasing user. It helped that most of the time I was getting a good look at something – her frame grew on me, as if getting to know her made her body more beautiful by itself. A nice shapely ass encouraged constantly by her choice of clothing, a bust that left nothing to be desired. But I was an overachiever – I desired nonetheless.

The real sell for me became the eyes. I couldn’t quite see them at first, but as soon as I knew Clara had caught my attention, I knew I had to see her eyes. And I had the perfect tools to do so. Enhance. Enhance. With a zoomed-in camera, her deep hazel eyes penetrated my soul for one fleeting moment when she turned around in her chair. There was a certain something to her look – a longing. A desire. A lust. I had picked my fascination well – Clara had the power to seduce with just her eyes. She was practically a gift – perhaps even a god-given reason for me to be here. I now had an excuse to come to work. Excuses became reasons, reasons became objectives, objectives became my focus.

Pattern recognition played in heavily here. I began to number the Claras that I saw. Clara #1 was the Clara I saw at work. But then there was Clara #2, The Clara who was just off work, exhilarated to get out of the chair, stretch, and leave her cubicle. For a while, the bouncing between Clara #1 and Clara #2 became my pastime, my favorite show. On a very special episode, I got to see Clara #3, the Clara that got angry when her computer started acting up. I almost got out of my chair in surprise, in response to seeing the new Clara. Clara was no longer a show, she was her own person with feelings and aspirations. Sonder, they call it. Look it up.

The more I saw Clara #3, the more I wanted her out of the way to make room for Clara #2, the happy Clara. I wanted to be the one there for Clara. But I wasn’t stupid, I was never stupid. I was invisible to Clara, all three of them. I was the eye in the sky, and Clara only looked towards her screen, just as I did. I needed to escape my position over Clara more than she needed to escape her position under me, trapped in a prison of security where I can see her but she can’t see me. Panopticon, they call it. Look it up. I needed to find a way to worm my way in, to become an active part of Clara’s life instead of a passive one, to become a player rather than a spectator. I was sick of cheering from the bleachers, I wanted to get on the field myself and show the crowd what I had in me.

I came equipped, of course. All of the equipment was there at my disposal. The cameras I controlled were there for me to use. Do your job. Enhance. Enhance. A business card on the desk. Clara Jackson. I had a full name. I also had Facebook, and knew exactly what to do. Enhance. Enhance. I smirked the first time I found her profile – Facebook’s security theater hadn’t won her over. Maybe I did a little research. Maybe everyone has done a little research before on Facebook in this way. But everyone stops after a bit because they feel guilty or awkward. After all, it’s only healthy. Besides, it was still an early point, and I was still running the Panopticon.

Not running it well enough. Audio. I needed audio. I made a phone call to my superiors, the first time I had done so in a while. Now, what happens when they say no? No becomes ‘it’s needed.’ ‘It’s needed’ becomes ‘yes.’ ‘Yes’ becomes ‘immediately.’

Suppose I take a night shift, and some people break in. These are bad people. Good people. Good at what they do. They just lost sight of what it means to be good. Or rather, lost hearing. They took out the cameras, yes, but as they stole some documents, they shouted a bunch, and that’s what alerted me to them. Suppose they only barely got away, and left nothing traceable. Suppose the audio could have been the only clue. That’s when no becomes yes. After all, these guys were good. Very good. They knew exactly how to hide themselves, maybe they worked in security before or something. The documents? Of little value, but it was a matter of principle. Besides, the documents weren’t hidden at this point, they were burned, but no one knew that, so they’d be chasing after nothing for a while. Tomorrow, the microphones would be installed.

A few days later, I find out Clara doesn’t care. She posts a lot of her feelings to her Facebook wall, and the new microphones weren’t mentioned. She’s still Clara #2 under that mask of Clara #1, and I haven’t seen Clara #3 in a while. But now, I’m not just seeing Clara, I’m hearing her. I’m getting the full three dimensions of Clara. Hearing becomes understanding, understanding becomes feeling, feeling becomes wanting. Do your job.

The air of desire exists in Clara’s voice as much as her eyes. To the untrained, her voice means nothing, but the highness of her voice is deliberate. Seductive, delicate, urging you to come closer. The way her breath shifts when she talks about something she likes, the way she holds on to her vowels just a tad too long, nothing escapes the Panopticon. There’s a note of lust to her voice, she invisibly begs for someone to come and take her in her high, teasing voice. The head register, they call it. Look it up.

From viewing her Facebook, I understand that Clara is single. From listening to her, I understand that she is wanting. And from watching her, I understand where she goes, day by day. Pattern recognition. I start alternating between looking into her interests online and rehearsing how I could play off of them if we did happen to randomly meet on the street. Then, one day, it happens. When Clara is out grabbing lunch at a place across the street, another man happens to be there at the same time.

This man happens to dress like Clara’s ex two relationships ago, the one she seemed to have a harder time getting over.