Watches

by Nia Crawford

A lot of things don’t exist here: food, work, and sleep to name a few. The loss of those things weren’t hard to get used to, but the absence of time was. No calendars. No watches. No clocks. Here, we just exist, like the wind. Like smoky film in the air. We’re spirits barely visible to the human eye.

Speaking of humans, we love them. We used to be them. But now, all we do is watch them. We watch, but we don’t “watch over.” There’s a big difference between the two, you know.

My wife and I arrived here together, but we don’t know when because of the time thing. We watch our progeny; hoping to interact with our ancestors, one day. But we’re told that’s not how this place works.

We watch Isha a lot. She’s our great-grandchild, and we remember her because we saw her regularly during our earthly existence. Even back then, she was more entertaining than Steve Harvey on Family Feud.

We love to see her interact with her friend Jae; my wife and I dubbed her the pushover. It’s super entertaining when Jae “protects” her “peace.” Like when she sees Isha’s face light up her Android, then lowers the volume. Jae thinks she’s quietly ignoring Isha. It’s so foolish because Isha would never think anyone would ignore her, so why be “quiet” about it?

Not long ago, Isha went looking for an old college buddy who stopped responding to her texts, calls, and Instagram messages. Believing the friend was in peril, Isha decided to knock on the girl’s door to see for herself.  Traffic was nuts, so she rented one of those electric scooters, rode in the Maryland Ave bike lane, and documented every segment of the trip. My wife and I laughed at the foolish girl pulling out her selfie stick for a mini-photo shoot in Baltimore’s busiest bike lane. Isha arrived at the woman’s door an hour later and knocked real hard. When her former friend flung open the custom solid wood door and scolded her for showing up uninvited, Isha tried to explain the emergency, that she thought the friend was in peril because she had not heard from her.

The friend was too angry to explain that Isha’s uninvited visit was another example of her bad personality. She called Isha self-righteous, self-absorbed, and ugly. That girl was either blind or real mad, because our great grand was far from ugly, so much so that her hairstylist never charged her as long as she kept her hair short. Every visit, without fail, the practitioner said, “No hair should cover any part of your beautiful face.”

That might be one reason Isha’s former friend resented her so much. Who knows? One thing was clear: that girl hated Isha. She tried to slam the heavy wood door in Isha’s face, but the door was too old and too warped. Nevertheless, Isha got the message and bawled real tears on the porch, not knowing she was being watched on the Ring cam. My wife and I got a kick out of watching someone watch the same person we were watching.

Days later, when Isha told Jae the story, she asked if she deserved it, if she was selfish and a bad person. Jae was the type to euphemize a situation to death to avoid sharing an uncomfortable truth, so she lied.

My wife and I got a real kick out of that.

A month later, Isha texted Jae, “Call me. It’s an emergency.”

I knew this was going to be good, so I alerted my wife and we watched as Jae decided what to do. We weren’t surprised she ignored Isha. She remembered the last few Isha emergencies, which were a ride to the grocery store that’s five blocks away or help squeezing into a dress that’s two sizes too small.

We thought about spazzle, the dust spirits used in the past to give earthlings a push. If we had it, we’d push Jae to be honest with Isha, but not mean like the old college buddy was. That would make for a better Watch for me and my wife. But Jae was left to her own devices, so she did nothing.

By evening, Isha texted: “Jae, it’s urgent. Call me!!!”

Jae dialed, and Isha picked up on the first ring.

“My house is in foreclosure!”

She explained that her mother forged her signature on bank applications, took the equity out of her house, and never made a payment. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Isha was the last to know. Her sister knew, her brother knew, and her mother’s husband knew.

Her mom did it to pay her medical bills, and the whole thing had been going on for over a year.

Isha sighed, “Can you believe it?”

We could because we saw Isha’s mom, our granddaughter, sign all those confusing papers. We saw the bank lady notarize the documents.

Jae asked Isha what she was gonna do about it.

“File charges against her and sue her. My mom’s going to jail and will lose every asset she has. I’m going after her husband too! Might go after my sister too since she knew about it but didn’t say anything. She’s an accessory!”

My wife and I got a good chuckle out of that one while Jae looked perplexed. She wasn’t sure if accessory worked like that, but she kept her doubts to herself. Isha talked for the next thirty minutes without taking a breath. Finally, she paused and Jae interrupted with some made-up excuse to get off the phone.

Three weeks later, Isha’s face lit up Jae’s phone as she drove to work. When Jae didn’t answer, Isha texted her.

“Call me. It’s an emergency!”

My wife and I tuned in, giving the humans our full attention.

Jae ignored the text and emailed Isha to let her know she was working in a highly secured government building, a SCIF, the whole day and couldn’t use her phone. Email would be spotty too (a lie), but Isha could explain her emergency through email, and Jae would do her best to assist.

None of the lies mattered, because the inevitable spiral happened when Jae learned that Isha’s sister had gone to see her to demand she drop the lawsuit against their mother. Words quickly turned to violent actions, and Isha’s sister crawled to the door holding her side, putting pressure on a flesh stab wound. That was before she stumbled down Isha’s pristine marble steps that we saw her bleach two days before. When Isha looked out the window and saw the sullied steps, we heard her mumbling about the amount of bleach it’d take to clean the stains.

The police and ambulance showed up at the same time, and Isha refused to let either one in. My wife and I wanted to spazzle Isha to push her to open the door, but we don’t have access to the magic dust, so we had to watch the authorities pry open the front door.

Jae found all of this out on her lunch break when she checked her phone. Oh, her face! It went from consternation (after seeing the notice for twenty missed calls and fifteen texts from Isha) to resolve (after learning Isha’s sister was still in the hospital) very quickly.

Jae took off the rest of the day and went straight to the hospital to visit the sister. She got her to agree to drop the charges. Her last stop was the jail where she waited for hours until everything was sorted out, then she drove Isha home.

If there was time for spazzle, it was now. But time nor spazzle exists in our spirit world. If it did, we’d mix the dust with Isha’s self-absorption and sprinkle a lot on Jae to toughen her up. Then we’d mix it with Jae’s over-giving and sprinkle just a tad on Isha to soften her. Just a little. That would make for a more authentic friendship. At the very least, my wife and I would be able to enjoy better Watches. Two self-absorbed friends made for a much better Watch than one!

BIO

Nia Crawford is a writing instructor who writes from Baltimore and Philadelphia.  She’s taught writing to middle schoolers and college students for over 20 years.  She’s been published in Ink Nest Poetry, BODY, Necessary Fiction, and Killens Review of Arts in Letters. Nia is also a real estate agent, and she loves volunteer work and community-based organizations.