The Watcher

As I assemble the narrative of my life, there is contained within it something of a biographical quality. It is, in part, the tale of one other than myself. Expressing the objectivity and insight of a watcher. One who observes only. A benign voyeur. Despite each fleeting switch to third party observation, for that brief moment, when the face of the protagonist becomes lost amongst the words, there is reprieve. It is not an act of deliberate self-deception. When reality comes into sharp relief once more, my conscious mind absorbs the knowledge like a blow. It never fails to stun. Rather than deception, it is more a defensive forgetting. Shade from an all-consuming sun. Freud would have had good cause to hold me aloft, illustrating the validity of his theory of defence mechanisms.