About the watcher on the top of the hill

There was a man on the top of the hill every morning.

The boy, who lived down that same hill, would watch him from his window before the day called on him to deliver his duties.

That man, he noticed, would look ahead.

Always with the same plead shirt. Always with the same broad shoulders.

Always still.

The boy would wonder.

Maybe - he invented - the man was waiting.

Waiting for a dog that had gone missing.

Or a letter, that would never come.

Maybe a sign from a distant land, telling him to abandon his watch.

Maybe - he concluded - he was watching.

The watcher, he would call him. The Watcher On The Top Of The Hill.

“If a dragon would to invade the city” he thought “the watcher would know. He would save us”. He always thought about that in silence, never sharing this special little moment with his friends or his mother. He feared.

Feared that he wouldn’t be able to explain how important it was. How special. The Watcher On The Top Of The Hill.

Feared that other people would tell him a truth he didn’t wanted to learn. The real reason why the man was up there.

He liked his story. He liked waking up to always find him there.

And the city was saved.

And he was safe.

And that was enough.

But time spares no man.

And curiosity becomes something ugly when you grow up.

And the boy became a teen. And as a teen, safe wasn’t all he was seeking.

The young man would get annoyed now.

“Why won’t he move?” he would ask no one in particular “What is he doing? What does he want?”.

But the silent answer that came from the early meetings didn’t sufficed his angst.

One day he decided. He would go up the hill and confront him.

He would break that strange mystery that did nothing for him but to confuse his head.

That day, he took a bag with lots of rocks. The watcher could be dangerous.

The watcher could be a killer, waiting either for directions or that infamous dragon to slay.

The watcher could get rid of his body silently and unsuspectingly.

He decided, and that time he was glad this was a secret, because sharing fears is not something young man do, not to go. And grudgingly watched the watcher, from afar.

And time spares no man.

One day, he was adult enough not to wonder, and to tell his own children tales about the watcher, turning the secret into a bedtime story he could now share. That he could now pretend he understood.

One day, his daughter called on him and pointed to the watcher.

Always with the same plead shirt. Always with the same broad shoulders.

But this time not still.

The image of the man would grab his own body as if in pain.

And the boy, now a man, saw his own childhood story break and twist and disappear.

It seemed, from afar, that the man was suffering or dying.

He put on his boots, told his wife someone was dying and ran off up the hill.

He wondered what would happen, 

If there was no one to watch the hill.

If there was no one to keep him safe.

If there was no one at the other side of that bond he so fondly created.

He ran.

But time, once again, spares no man.

He didn’t find any family to call.

He didn’t told anyone about the tale, so he knew no one who knew him.

But he did his duty, as if the hill itself was calling him upon that task.

A long time after, he thought of buying the watcher’s house, so he could save that part of his own memory forever.

But it seemed… Wrong.

Instead.. He would wake up to the sight of nothing but the hill and the sun, and remember.

And this time, tell his family, and his children, little they were, would believe him.

The town was safe.

They were safe.

The Watcher On The Top Of The Hill was, forever, watching.