The Watcher
I’ve seen ‘em come, and I’ve seem ‘em go. Ever since I born I’ve been watching all people of Manahatta. I was born here on Manhattan, just a year before the War of the Independence of the Seas. My father was a Frenchman who said it was only right to dress me the same way he would have at home. Unfortunately money got tight and my clothes only covered my front. My father was a quite a busy man and had another child in this city just before I was born. My sanctimonious older brother still lives on Mott Street, despite the bellows of some of the locals during his teenage growth spurts. He’s an old man now, and his company replaced him with a younger more modern fellow, but he still finds work each Sunday. I’ve always had the same job of course, hard at work for the Big Apple.
In my line of work its hard to hold down a job for more than 4 or so years. In my time I’ve seen the crowds cheer the new boss in only to break him down in a month. Take the new guy for example, he was wildly popular back in early 2014. Everyone though he was going to change everything and when he tried to change things, he suffered for it. As I said earlier, I’ve seen ‘em come, and I’ve seem ‘em go. Every time they build ‘em up, just to break ‘em down and four years later, then repeat it over and over again. I don’t think there has ever been a big cheese who the big apple loved for more than a month after an election or tragedy (supposing there’s a difference), but I guess that just how they are, chewin’ ‘em up just to spit ‘em out and chem ‘em out again.
Despite living here longer than most, it’s not my city or any of my brothers’. No matter how many postcards are printed with our faces on it, this city was never ours. We did not build it, they did. From my perspective, watching the people come and go, they are the city. Even if they came from far away or only spent a day on the island of Manhattan, it is their city. The city is not a mere collection of buildings and streets; it is the people who are there. In all my years, I have never seen a building teach or raise children or laugh or cry. The city is the people who scream at mayors, who gape at street performers, who jaywalk on 34th Street, who somehow constantly fight yet live together.
