Listen, no body in this county knows anything about me, I like to keep to myself, see? I’m plain as pine, still as dead, and when I speak to someone, the first reply is "huh?" as they didn’t notice me there. I might take your dirty plate at the café, standing politely quiet nearby; I might clean your office at night, when no one else is there, and I put things back just as they were. Sometimes I watch your children, hear their play, bathe their bodies, and tuck them in tight, good night, and I see what there is to see about the house. I never change anything, I make no remark, impart no energy to cause or prevent, I never tell.

There is freedom in this, that I was there, a silent witness, and I know, I see the thick black plastic shape hard hidden amidst the soft common cotton underwear; I read the story of bruises on your child’s body; I find your secretary’s earring behind the desk, find the sticky condom in the trash. I see and hear you all.

It makes me love you. The sad desperation of your lives, the heartbreaking things you do to find love, the funny, pitiful pull of your addictions and the ugly, hairy grasping of your needs. You are big smelly animals that talk and talk and lie to the world and lie to yourselves, how human you are. How I would love to take you into my arms and say, "I know, I know your secret, it’s all right, you’re just like all of us, we’re all a little dirty, all a little sad, and death is always at our shoulder, we’re all afraid."

And then, I might myself explain what I do with the plastic shape, my swift touch on your child’s body, where the condom goes if not the trash, and I would show you that, plain as I am, I am desperate, too.