Short Story Saturday: 'The Window Man' by Guest Author Xanxa Symanah

Check out Xanxa's full-length novel by the same name.

The Window Man

by Xanxa Symanah 

I lean back in my chair and look at the view from my window.  My window in my office.  The office which I now occupy as befitting my status.  For so many years, I have merely existed at the whim of others and allowed myself to be used by others.  No more.  A change has been wrought and the balance of power has moved in my favour.

I have achieved the infamy which I desired all along.  People may curse me or fear me but they will never forget my name.  I will live on in the tales they tell their offspring at night (why do so many species do this?  Frighten the little ones half to death, THEN expect them to drift happily off into sleep?) and the rumours which spread like forest fires.

If you ever see me in your window, you know you are doomed.  Even if you don't see me, and I am there, it still spells your swift demise.  The missions are similar, the reasons are similar, only the chain of command has changed.  I now call the shots.  I have minions waiting to do my bidding and apprentices hanging on my every word.  I rule my own private empire.

A God? No, I still prefer to think of myself as a man.  Not just any man, I am the Window Man.  Closing the shutters will not keep me from your window.  I know the deepest secrets of the soul, I know the lies, I made them myself.  And I will not hesitate to use that knowledge against you.  In fact I will delight in it.  If I were given to dancing, I would dance on your grave.  In reality I prefer to celebrate my victories in a far more modest and seemly manner.  I get blind drunk ... alone ...

Alone.  Still alone.  Even after all this notoriety, there is still nobody to fill the endless void which threatens to consume me with all the might of a black hole.  There is a vast black hole where my soul is supposed to reside.

There have been interested individuals over the years, but none of them have survived their liaisons with me.  To be touched by me is to embrace death.

Alone.  Lonely at the top.  The fact I am so remote from all who cower beneath me only serves to reaffirm my status.  I can trust nobody, admit nobody into my inner sanctum.

I am the Window Man.  I come with a lifetime guarantee ... yours or mine?