I’ll watch him from the corner of his bedroom where the numerous paperback towers collect dust. I know that I frighten him, so I make myself as quiet and invisible as I can. I like to watch him dance. He turns up the music and his young body sways in abandon, graceful, hips swinging, feet gliding across the cold hardwood floor.

He is so beautiful, then.

Waves of multicolored energy steam from his flesh and shimmer across the room, turning the walls and the ceiling into liquid sheets of rainbows. And he sings, and his voice is strong, vibrant, not timid and hushed like it is when his father comes home, when he is not alone.

He thinks himself too awkward, too dull and introspective to hold anyone’s interest. But I’ve seen him glow. I’ve seen him as he is when he thinks that no one is watching; I know the beauty which emerges from its cage when he’s alone. Then he shines. I see him make love to himself, crying out someone’s name into the pillows. I see him read and watch the happiness in his face. I see him dance.

Yes, I like to watch him. It brings me joy. But sometimes it hurts to see him spinning in his solitude, trapped inside a cell he’s too blind to see is not even locked.

Once, I deliberately ran across his path on the kitchen floor and he shrieked, paralyzed at my sight. Before I scurried back through the hole under the sink I stared at him. I stared and stared, wishing he could hear me, wishing I could show him his beauty. But he can’t hear me, and he wouldn’t understand anyway. To him I am only a furry smelly thing that squeaks and sullies everything in its path, a thing to be despised. Exterminated.

I am supposed to tell the others about my observations of him, but I don’t, so I keep this secret diary. For countless ages, my family has kept the world’s stories alive. We are the Keepers of Stories, for we see everything sublime and horrendous. Who else could record the doings of humans but us? Rich men, poor men, we live amongst them, and their stories enthrall us.

But I’ve kept him to myself, a precious secret. He dances only for me.

If I were human I would have to say that I am in love with him.