I'm being watched.

I went out for a lovely evening on Saturday to a wine-tasting dinner here in town. It was fabulous; good food (8 courses!), good wine, good people. By the time I came back to my apartment I was in a very pleasant state of mind, completely full, and a little brain-soggy.

Then I walked into my apartment building.

I unlocked the building’s front door, hopped down the few steps to my apartment, and stopped dead. There, in the middle of the hallway, was a witch.

It was a stuffed witch, maybe 4 feet tall, standing upright and clutching a broom. It was almost cute, but mostly ugly. It was in the middle of the hall, not next to anybody’s door, facing me. And it was looking at me.

It has these glass eyes – green orbs that probably light up if you plug the thing into the wall. But it was apparently not plugged in, so the eyes were not illuminated; yet strangely, they would catch the light from the hallway and reflect it back in such a way that it seemed as if they were moving, following me. The thing was standing between me and my door. I actually looked around to see if there was someone else in the hallway, laughing at this little joke. After all, this is SEPTEMBER. September, people, is not time for Halloween decorations. But there was no one, just me and the witch.

After a few moments, I laughed it off as premature decorating, and slowly walked past the thing, to my own apartment. I kept looking at it, sideways, until I had my door unlocked and was able to duck into my apartment. When the thing was out of sight, my brain-sogginess kicked back in, and I went to bed without another thought.

Sunday morning, I gathered up all my laundry and went about having a Sunday. With my laundry basket under one arm and my detergent in the other, I opened my front door and walked out into the hallway, toward the laundry room. As soon as I set foot in the hallway, I knew something was different. I looked over toward my neighbors’ door and saw that the witch from Saturday night had moved. It was no longer in the middle of the hallway, but off to the side, near the stairs. Facing me. Its eyes were catching the light again, and I went into the laundry room very quickly. On my way back into my apartment, I didn’t even look in that direction.

This morning I went out to get my mail. The witch has moved again. It’s now standing right next to my neighbors’ door, like a sentry or a gargoyle or something. This actually makes me feel better, because now I’m fairly sure that it really is just a Halloween decoration put out by my idiot neighbors, and not some haunted Stephen King prop. What I find strange is that I never see anyone move it, I just see that it has moved. And no matter where I enter the building (from the front door, or from my own apartment, on the opposite side of the building), it is always facing me. I don’t like this witch.

Inanimate objects should not make this nervous.