The Watchman Stevens
Stevens arrived at the factory at the start of winter, with the first frost. No one knew where he’d come from. He wasn’t local—that much was clear. His speech carried a faint northern lilt, but he never spoke of his past. The receptionist whispered that he’d come from a security firm, a temporary replacement. His papers were clean, he was sober, restrained. Polite, yet distant, as if every word passed through an invisible wall.
“The main thing is staying awake on duty,” muttered the head of security, flipping through the file. “You’ll pick up the rest.”
Stevens never slept. Not once. Other guards might doze by the radiator or bring a camp bed for night shifts. He sat motionless, like a statue. No fidgeting, no sighing. Only occasionally shifting his gaze from the monitor to the iron gates and back. He drank nothing but water—no tea, no sugar. Didn’t smoke. His meals came in a thermos—thick soup and a slab of brown bread wrapped in an old cloth. He ate slowly, staring into nothing, as if food were a ritual, not a necessity.
At first, they mocked him. They called him “Flint”—for his stony stillness and grim focus. Joked he was a runaway monk or recluse, especially when someone caught him whispering—quietly, like an incantation. Others claimed he was ex-military: his movements too precise, his gaze too sharp when he scanned the yard. But no one knew the truth. Stevens never lingered in conversation. His replies were brief, measured, as if this were a mission, not just a job.
Four months passed. Stevens became part of the scenery, unnoticed like rust on the fences. He manned the gate, logged names, raised the barrier for lorries, watched the cameras. Always silent. Always impassive. At times, it seemed he didn’t even breathe—just watched, like a man guarding something greater than warehouses and workshops.
Then, one February night, a boy slipped onto the grounds. A gap in the fence, as usual. He meant to nick some scrap copper, thought no one would see. But he slipped on an icy pipe near the derelict hangar and fell. Screamed till his voice cracked. Stevens heard it—not from the cameras, but the sound itself. He ran, found him. The boy lay there, teeth clenched, face whiter than snow. His leg was broken, bone jutting through torn denim.
Stevens called an ambulance. While they waited, he fashioned a splint from a stick and his own belt—swift, sure, as if he’d done it all his life. He stayed silent, just gripped the boy’s hand tight, keeping him conscious. Stood there, unblinking, till the medics took him away. Then he returned to his post, hung up his soaked jacket, changed, and sat at the monitor. As if nothing had happened. As if it were just routine.
After that, they spoke of him differently. They noticed he arrived first, left last. That the gatehouse was cleaner, as if swept at night. That petty thefts from the storerooms had stopped. Even the stray dog that haunted the factory slept by his door and growled at strangers—as if it knew: this man wasn’t just a watchman.
Then, in April, he vanished. Didn’t show for his shift. No call, no warning. His phone was dead. Management checked his file—no address listed. Just the basics: passport number, a sharp, angular signature, and a defunct agency’s contact. The passport was real but unregistered. As if Stevens existed only on paper.
They found his keys, his uniform folded like a soldier’s, and a note with a single line: *”Thank you for the peace.”* The paper was old, edges darkened, the handwriting crisp—almost carved. One guard said it looked oddly antiquated, like something from another century.
The stray sat by the door for three days. Didn’t eat, didn’t whine, just lifted its head when the gates creaked. Its eyes stared into the distance, waiting. On the fourth morning, it stood, circled the post, and left—slowly, as if knowing there was no one left to wait for.
A month later, a lathe worker swore he saw Stevens across town. Sitting on a bench outside a school, still in that long coat, collar up, fastened tight. Watching the gate. Unmoving. Holding a newspaper but not reading it—just gripping it like something dear.
When approached, he stood, nodded once—calm, brief—and walked away, never looking back. His pace was slow, like a man with nowhere to hurry but who still must go.
No one saw him again. Not at the school, not in the city, nowhere. But sometimes, on night shifts, the guards whisper: turn out the lights and stand alone, and you might feel it—someone beyond the gates. Silent. Motionless. Watching.
As if someone’s there. Just unseen.
And so they learn: the quietest watchers guard more than doors. They keep the ghosts of unspoken things.
