Anna Johnson: Part 1

She’s never been one for pizza. She really likes to cook, though, especially chicken. A lot of times she fries it with flavored balsamic vinegar; her favorite is the espresso kind. Oh, how she loves her coffee. One time she had this coconut creamer and was obsessed with it. Her music taste is unique, some of it is pop-rock, but she also likes classical piano and acoustic guitar.

Some of her most exciting personality traits include wearing round frame glasses and sitting on wooden benches. Any wooden bench. Anywhere. There’s just something about wooden benches that she is drawn to. I know that wearing round glasses and sitting on wooden benches aren’t really personality traits, but honestly, besides cooking chicken and drinking coffee, they’re the only things she does. Of course, she works while she sits on benches. She writes, she reads, she doesn’t really talk though.

Overall, she seems like a pretty boring person. But there’s something about her, something that is so subtle that makes her noticeably unnoticeable, whatever that means. It’s something that draws you to her like she’s drawn to wooden benches, but you know better than to interrupt her sitting. So I never have.

The only reason I know these things about her is that I’m required to. It’s rather dull because all she does is sit. So I sit on a bench across the street from her, or next to her, or sometimes she makes it difficult if she chooses a lone wooden bench, then I have to stand awkwardly up against a building or lamppost nearby. Every day. Then I follow her back to her apartment at a safe distance, watch her cook up her chicken and drink her coffee. She sits on her wooden rocking chair, watches some cooking show, takes off her round glasses, and goes into what I assume is her bedroom, shuts the door, and doesn’t come out until morning. Her bedroom always has the blinds closed.

Watching her at home isn’t that difficult because I live in the apartment a couple doors down. She has no roommates, but the rent definitely isn’t cheap. She must be an excellent writer then. She’s not well-known; I’ve only seen a few of her writing pieces. A couple random columns in a couple random papers across the state. One time she wrote a column in The New York Times, though. But that’s all I can find of her writing. Her name is Anna Johnson. I know, it’s so common, so boring, like her. It doesn’t flow quite right, doesn’t suit her.

Anna Johnson just turned twenty-four. She dropped out of Princeton University to become a full-time freelance writer two years ago after her mother suddenly died. There is no record of her father.

I wish I could talk to her. Yes, she seems bland, but that’s what’s interesting about her. She’s noticeably unnoticeable. I wouldn’t want to talk to her for too long though, I’ve never heard her hold a conversation for more than a minute or two. The longest sentence I’ve ever heard her say was something along the lines of “Yes, I’m going to the gas station later today to get blueberries.” I thought that was weird because 1. who goes to the gas station specifically for blueberries, and 2. because she never did.

The only times I’ve heard her speak are when she occasionally talks on the phone, but I can never tell who she talks to. I don’t recall ever hearing her say someone’s name. Sometimes she goes into a coffee shop and gets a coffee and some type of chicken sandwich, but I never follow her in because I don’t want to risk her seeing me. I’ve been following her for about a year now; she’s always invested in her work though, reading or writing, she barely looks up, she wouldn’t notice if someone tripped over her feet as they walked by.

Where was I going with this? Oh, yes: I would like to talk to her, but they don’t let me. They say that it’s “too dangerous.” Their instructions were “follow her all day, don’t get too close, and don’t talk.” So that’s what I’ve done. Sometimes I go undercover just in case she happens to look up two days in a row and get suspicious — but that’s highly unlikely.

Oh, she’s getting up now. Well, it is almost 5 o’clock. She gets up from today’s wooden bench, pulls out her phone, and heads back to the apartment building. I wait about a minute and a half before I head back too, just enough time to keep a safe distance, but also so I can still keep an eye on her. Just in case she decides to do something illegal or suspicious, which she never does. Honestly I have no idea why I have to keep watching her, she lives a boring life, all she does is make chicken, drink coffee, and sit on a wooden bench to read or write.

Ping. That must be my boss. Hopefully he’s telling me to call it quits and that I can do something else for a change. Boring Anna. Honestly I wish she was dangerous, then this job wouldn’t be so boring.

I pull out my phone to check the text, but it’s from an unidentified number. This is my work phone, right? Yeah. Usually, unknown numbers are automatically blocked from my work phone, but this one isn’t. So I open the text and read: Hi James! Happy anniversary! It’s been exactly one year since you started stalking me!

My eyes go wide with shock and horror. I look up, and Anna Johnson is stopped, in the middle of the sidewalk, about 100 feet away, looking down at her phone. Then she slowly turns back to look at my dumb face, makes eye contact, and winks.