Effie

I see dead people.

Okay so I don’t see dead people, but I was eight when I first realised I could see things no one else could. After thinking it over for the best part of two hours one saturday, I finally plucked up the courage and asked my parents, “Who are the shiny people that watch over everyone?” they gave me some nonsensical christian response about Guardian Angels and ‘Our Saviour’, Jesus Christ. Of course I had been referring to the blue beings (that looked human but clearly weren’t on account of the fact that they were partially translucent), that followed everyone around and took notes. By the age of ten I had decided to never share with anyone what I could see, lest I be called crazy, or - by my parents understanding of the world - possessed. As the years went on I studied these creatures, as they studied my fellow mouth breathers, and I began referring to them as the ‘Examiners’. I noticed several things:

1. To every Human, there is one Examiner.

2. Examiners and people are linked, there’s no swapping. My parents have had the same Examiners my whole life, and as far as I’ve observed in the rest of the world, this is the same for everyone.

3. These creatures don’t breathe, or at least, not in the way we do. I discovered this by watching a little fat kid breathing on the window of a sweet shop. The glass steamed where he gawped. But not where the examiner was mimicking his behaviour. Now originally I argued with myself that just because I couldn’t see the breath on the glass didn’t mean they didn’t breathe at all, it could just be that it isn’t visible based on changes of temperature or proximity. But I wanted to test the theory, so I went to my local swimming pool. Every time the people would return to the surface of the water for air, the Examiners would simply continue to move along the bottom of the pool. I watched one Examiner moving underwater for over thirty minutes before its human finally started to get out, and it broke the surface to follow them.

4. The Examiners are grading, or at least researching, the people they follow. Every time someone does something different or breaks routine - holding the lift for someone when they normally don’t, or showing an emotion that they wouldn’t usually express - a librarian shouting out in anger. The Examiners make a note of it. They have little pieces of blue translucent ‘paper’, and they scribble down a series of symbols (using only their fingers as pens).

5. The Examiners have superiors, or colleagues. I worked this one out because one day when I was about 13 I was walking to school and there was this old lady waiting to cross the road. A man who was walking past stopped and asked if she’d like a hand. He looked pretty rough, helping little old ladies cross roads was definitely not on his usual ‘to-do’ list, but nonetheless he took her elbow and escorted her across. Subsequently his Examiner scribbled down a note of this selfless action, and then - for the first time in my life - I watched as the creature reached up (seemingly into thin air), and grabbed hold of something. All of a sudden a vast mass and network of see-through tubes appeared. The structure was huge, and looked like the inner-workings of a palace plumbing system. There were hundreds and hundreds of pipes all leading in different directions up into the sky, and every so often they would reach down to about ceiling height and end in a cap. It was a cap that the Examiner that day removed, placed a stack of papers into, and then closed - resuming on his way behind the dodgy-looking man. I stood in awe and just as the structure started to fade from view I watched as the stack of papers zoomed along the pipe, and quickly disappeared into the chaos. It seemed that once enough notes had been collected on an individual, they were deposited into the ‘mail shoots’, and passed on to whoever was waiting at the other end of the tubes.

6. And finally, It took me a long time to realise this one, the Examiners don’t know that I can see them.

With regards that last one, it’s actually a lot harder than you’d think to purposefully not look at someone. Try it, the next time you’re in a public place. Pick someone and then try not to look at them - even out of your peripheral - for as long as you can. I bet you won't last more than a minute. I should know, the amount of times I’ve caught myself staring at my family’s Examiners around the dinner table. I’m saved by the fact that the creatures aren’t easily distracted. Their soul purpose seems to be to study their humans, and they don’t ever take their eyes off them - as far as I can tell. I have no idea what would happen if they realised I could see them, but based on everything I’ve observed, I’m not sure I want to find out.

One of the interesting things that I still haven’t fully worked out yet, is their level of interaction with our ‘plain’. I mean, they clearly exist on a different plain to us right? How else could their postal-service-mega-structure not be blocked by our buildings? The pipes travel right through the ceilings and walls in places. So they can build stuff in their ‘world’ that isn’t bothered by stuff in this world, and yet they seem to be able to slightly effect things in this one as well. You ever get that feeling you’re being watched? Think you feel something touch your arm? Or your leg? Hairs on the back of your neck stand up for no reason? Your skin crawls, again for no reason and you exclaim ‘oh someone just walked over my grave’, nope. But your Examiner did just move past you, grazing your skin and making you shiver. So my question is this, if someone was about to accidentally fall off a cliff - or something - would their Examiner be able to save them, and if so, would they?

Now this isn’t something that I can test. In case you haven’t realised by now, I don’t have an Examiner, I’m a lone ranger. Why? I have no idea. Did I offend someone at birth and they were like ‘fuck this kid, she ain’t getting one.’ I really don’t know. It used to annoy me, when I was little and I saw all the other children in the playground being minded by these beautiful, ethereal beings. But as I grew up I relished in my solitude actually being solitude. No fear of them witnessing embarrassing or gross things, that are often a fact of life for us little humans. No fear of them seeing me getting rejected by my fifth grade crush, and noting it down for the out-of-sight Examiners to read. No fear of them seeing me wet myself in the back of a friend’s parents car. No no, my embarrassing memories and moments get to remain private. I can’t say the same for everyone else. Remember the first time you jerked off? How much shame you felt as you wiped your hand on a sock? Well your Examiner was probably feeling just as ashamed for bearing witness to it.