The Observer

She watched him from the apartment across the alley. She had cameras, microphones, everything you would need to observe his activities. This was her fifth assignment and it was the longest she had been on. During the training phase before you were ever allowed to watch you were taught to separate yourself from the subject, to never begin to think of the subject as anything but the subject. She was afraid she was failing. it had started innocently enough during her third week of watching. He seemed to look directly at her from his window and smile. She know there was no way he had seen her or known she was watching but still she felt as if they were connected through that one smile. As time went by she immersed herself in his activities and now she realized she was goner. She had gotten too involved, too concerned, too connected, maybe even fallen in love a little bit. She was going to have to ask for a reassignment. It would be hard ,but she could do it, she could leave this all behind and move on to another subject. Besides he would be dead soon anyway. I mean after all she had been watching him now for 80 years so that would make him well into his nineties, humans did not live much longer then that. She sighed when she thought back over all of her subjects and realized that her very first observation subject had now been dead for over three centuries. She shook her head and reminded herself that she had chosen to drink the serum and take the oath and pick up the Observer Mantle, she had a job to do and one 98 year old guy would not break her resolve. The observers must observe or chaos would reign.