The babysitter
A short story.
Claire was watching.
When she first began doing this, some days felt longer than others. Some nights, too. At this point, two years and six months in, they all felt exactly the same. Claire’s work was important work, but no one day felt any more urgent than another.
The window stretched all the way from one corner of the room to the other. Half of her home was exposed to the outside.
“This fucking window.”
She called the place her home, despite the fact that it was one room, connected to nothing else outside the four walls. When she was younger, she dreamt of a ‘home’ in the countryside, with all the rooms she needed to live out all the fantasies she’d nurtured in the city.
Ironically, none of that upbringing included a scientific education. In fact, that was always one of her least favourite subjects. She liked numbers, and counting came naturally with her obsessive nature, but mathematics for any real stretch of time made her despair. She looked forward to music, mainly because she could hit things, and sometimes even shout, and be rewarded for it.
Now, each day, she woke to find herself once again confined inside four white, perfectly indifferent walls, in which she had only one occupation. Each and every day, Claire sat by the 20-foot-wide, 20-foot-high window, dutifully watching the 21 planets in the system, carefully studying their movements.
There could be no surprises, no uncertainty, no deviation.
Some days they seemed to stare back at her, indifferently, heartlessly. On her more optimistic days, she imagined they had character, and that they might even contain some kind of life.
And why shouldn't they? They all had quirks, and no one was like the other. She had no choice but to learn their habits, and then make sure that they never surprised her by changing them. Every day a story took place in front of her eyes, just for her. It was a kind of privilege, a gift offered in exchange for paralysing loneliness.
102B was Claire's favourite. It moved slower than the rest, so she could leave it alone for longer. Plus, it was one of the brightest in the system, and it seemed to pulse rhythmically. She wished, pointlessly, that they could all behave that way.
Near the other end of the window were 6A and 32C, and appropriately enough, their behaviour was quite the opposite of 102B. The pair moved more erratically than any other planet, though always close together. She imagined them as unruly little boys, the older brother, 6A, leading the youngest astray with wild movements, their paths occasionally cutting across the choreography of the other nineteen.
It had been several months since anyone had rung for her on the phone fixed to the wall. Truthfully she barely noticed it, parked between the coffee machine and the shelf containing the health bars, with her many pharmaceutical treatments. Sometimes, she would imagine she was being served these things, rather than simply jabbing a button to release them.
“What will it be today Madame? Pill, health bar, and a coffee? Or perhaps coffee, health bar and a pill?”
Of course, she had no way of contacting anyone. The phone was one way. Any benefit to her would go against the whole point of this. No expenses were allowed besides those that were needed to keep her watching the planets. She was a tool, and she had a function, that was all that anyone needed to be concerned with.
She got three, sometimes four hours of sleep each night. Not enough rest for it to be worth buying curtains.
Claire was becoming weaker. The theft of two of her younger years would have felt like a small loss, but she was grown, and she knew that life was short. Watching had made her feel twice her age.
These things that she so carefully monitored were not hers, and she was not theirs, but that didn't matter. She was going to be there as long as they needed her to be. These 21 rocks would be under her watch every morning, and every night, whether they knew it or not.
“Good fucking morning.”
By the end of the first year, she had become confident that none of them were going anywhere. She had been warned that - as a one-woman outpost - she had best never feel truly reassured, but by this point she had all but forgotten the enveloping panic that accompanied her first few months.
She couldn't remember how it felt to wake up in this room the first time. The three walls that she had come to know every inch of, each of them still medically white and spotless. The porcelain bed that she had cried on, screamed on, touched herself on just to block out the misery, or to fall asleep. The merciless ceiling lights that made any effort to do either of those things ten times harder, seemingly switching on and off at their own will.
After 365 days, she let herself drift. Just a little bit, enough for her to think about something other than her situation. It was a difficult task to achieve, but she could make it into a routine. Is 16B settled in its usual spot in the corner of her view? Good. Close your eyes for 30 seconds, and do some breathwork.
Before she began watching, she had developed a very consistent meditation habit. Here, a nearly infinite supply of coffee made any true level of stillness physically impossible, but regardless, she had heard somewhere that trying was half the point.
Any moments of peace were worth fighting for. And on the second Monday of January, on her third year of watching, she actually managed to take a nap.
If she had to guess, it was no longer than an hour. But that was enough.
When she woke, 102B was gone. The golden child, her favourite, always so reliable. Where it should have been, there was simply nothing.
Her eyes flicked frantically between the other planets, looking for the familiar white glow. Then, for a while she just stared at the new blank space. Blinked, took a moment to rub her eyes, then stared again.
She could already feel the hot panic rising through her veins like steam, but her brain didn't catch up for at least several seconds. 102B had never missed a position. Not once.
There was no use losing her mind, that had more or less lost itself by now, anyway. After a long moment, she lay back against the headboard, folded her hands in her lap, and took a deep breath. Her hands and feet flexed with anxiety even as she stilled her chest, but she let her head rock to one side, looked out at the remaining planets, and found a moment’s peace.
She’d forgotten how shrill the ring of the phone was, something between a fire alarm and a child’s scream. Even so, she let it ring out five, maybe six times before she rose to her feet. There was no use in rushing now. She crossed the room, looking outside as she walked.
The handset was unnervingly cold. “Claire.” The voice was different from before. This was one of her handlers, but there was something new, an accent? It was as if the tension in her had made clearer something she hadn’t picked up before.
“Harriet,” Claire said evenly. After responding, she decided to not give any unnecessary ground by being the first one to explain the situation. Instead, she simply closed her eyes, and waited. Finally the voice spoke again. “Acknowledging Claire Murphy, station A20, November 13, 2034. Would you care to offer any further details before I arrive?”
What was the use? She could hazard a guess what the consequences of failure were, though they had never explicitly been laid out. Whatever happened next, she could surely do nothing to prevent it, so remaining silent seemed like the best option. Let them do the work for once.
Minutes passed. She listened for any breathing, or maybe even emotion. Frustration would have been a sweet sound. Not one vibration seemed to pass through the receiver. Finally, her handler spoke. “In that case, I’ll see you in one hour.”
She didn’t think an hour could feel any longer than it had over the last two years, but somehow it managed to. What should somebody do in this situation? She did the things she usually would after waking up: a cup of coffee, a pill. Half a health bar.
Then, to her own surprise, she attempted to freshen up. There was an outside chance of making herself presentable, but still. Even though she had presumably been seen countless times through the cameras, wherever they were, she hadn't been in the same room as another life in almost one-tenth of her own.
After washing her face, and tying her hair back as neatly as she could — it had recently met her waistline — she used the final ten minutes to take in the planets that remained. They moved in their usual manner, nothing to suggest that one of their companions had vanished. Did they know what that meant?
The hiss of the pneumatic door made every nerve stand on edge, and she turned sharply, as a cat might at the patter of a mouse.
Harriet appeared to be almost glowing. The sight of clean flesh sent shivers down Claire's spine, and she felt her pulse quicken once again. Her handler stepped cautiously into the entry space, as if the desperation in the room could somehow contaminate her elegant uniform.
Taking advantage of the brief moment before any more words would be spoken, Claire took her in with wide eyes. Her brown hair, shining clean and perfectly straight. The length of her, made clear by her posture, immediately conveying a silent confidence.
Claire didn't decide to speak; the words fell out of her mouth. “It's nice to finally meet you.” Harriet narrowed her eyes. She regarded the woman in front of her as an animal in captivity.
“I'm sure it is. How long has it been? Two, three?”
“Two and six.” Claire hadn't blinked. But then she remembered why Harriet was here. “What happens now?”
Harriet was at the window now. It must all look new from here, Claire thought. Handlers probably knew even more about the planets than watchers did, but unless there was a problem, they never saw it this close.
Harriet turned her head back towards the room slightly. “It will be quick.” She waited, but her watcher said nothing. After a moment, she turned the rest of the way. “Have you been writing?” she asked. “I hear that it helps.”
Claire didn't feel like that question needed a response. “Have you done this before?” she asked. She had learned almost nothing about the four voices that had spoken to her, on and off, over the years.
She knew why she was here, but who were they before they commanded her? Were they somebody's watcher too? No, Harriet was not owned, that much was clear. Nobody under anyone's control looked the way she did.
“Do you even realise how long you were asleep?”
Claire looked back at her impassively. “Considering how quickly you got here, I’m guessing around an hour? You must have been getting your flight gear on not long after it disappeared.”
Harriet bristled. She ran her fingers through her hair stiffly, looking back out at the planets, then fixed them again on Claire.
“Closer to two hours, actually. You obviously think I'm some sort of monster. But once I saw you had failed in your duty, I let you sleep a while. I let you enjoy that.” Then, she walked over to the phone.
“Thank you for that, then,” Claire said. “Is that against the rules?” The question didn't even register, and she was reminded of how the handlers were a perfect blank slate, now in the habit of ignoring any questions related to her situation that didn't directly involve her duties.
She would never know anything about the rest of them, but perhaps she could know this one. “Are you happy, Harriet?” That stopped her handler for a moment. She turned sharply, with a facial expression somewhere between outrage and fear.
“Do you really want to spend this time questioning me?” Harriet replied, but she had responded, in a way, and Claire noted it, before pondering the question, and then slowly rising to her feet, less shakily than before.
“I suppose not. What do you suggest I do?” The lights were starting to dim. “I couldn't care less,” Harriet said flatly. “Do whatever you like.”
Claire looked out of the window, then back at her handler. “Shall we fuck?” Harriet’s perfect features twitched slightly, and Claire took pleasure in cracking the professional mould. After a moment, Harriet fixed her once again with the same cold stare. “There’s no reason your final moments should include me.”
Claire sighed, and walked over to observe the 20 planets of the system for the last time. How long would things look this way? Why did they ever have to change?
Her handler interrupted her thoughts: “There have been three others.” Claire turned to her, and she continued. “You asked if I had done this before. There have been two others that I oversaw.”
“How long were they watching?” Claire saw the possible ramifications of answering the question bounce around Harriet's head. Surely, at this point there were no consequences. “The first was six months, the other was only one. It's not for everybody. It takes a certain…”
Harriet seemed to realise that criticising her, at this point, carried a certain risk. A slight directed at a woman in the last moments of her life, with nowhere to run, was capable of anything. Instead she gave a heavy sigh, and turned once again to the phone. She picked it up and waited.
After a moment, she looked across at her dutiful watcher, who once watched, but now simply waited. “Everyone is okay, Claire.”
Love this. It's giving out Black Mirror vibes.