My partner is being watched by a man who is not me.

My partner is being watched by a man who is not me.<br><br>You may think that an enormous proportion of the population is being watched by men who are not their partners. But that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, my partner is being watched by a man who is not me who *does not exist*.<br><br>I don’t know where it all started, but I do know when it started for me – the day I met Erin. She had a little debit card shaped piece of plastic in her purse, and when I asked her what it was she told me that it was her PAN Card – something her dad used to make for her when she was a teenager.<br><br>She didn’t know what it did, but that she could use it to make a guy go to sleep for a few days. She only used it once, when she was a teenager and was babysitting and the kid wouldn’t go to sleep. She told me she had him go to sleep with it, and the next morning his parents were furious. The kid was asleep, and nothing seemed to weaken him up. She never used it again, and she had no idea why it worked, but she had the feeling that the credit card was connected to something in her bone marrow, something her dad had done when she was just a kid.<br><br>She didn’t know what was in the card, either, only that she had a funny feeling it was connected to her spinal fluid.<br><br>Well, I had a mother who was a hippy. She always used to tell me that I didn’t have to work out because I was a genius – but you can’t live on brains alone, and, well, you learn a few things about the world that you didn’t know, if you ever get a job.<br><br>I know a few things. I know that the world is bigger, smaller, and more complex than we know. That there are some things that the government knows about us that they don’t tell us, and some things we know about the government that they don’t know we know. I know that there are cults, and they’re real. I know that people are right to be paranoid, because the government always has its eye on everyone.<br><br>And I know that there are two types of truth – truth you can stand to live with, and truth you can’t stand to die without.<br><br>I was the latter.<br><br>So I used the PAN Card, and I went to sleep. I woke up a few days later, feeling a bit funny, but more or less fine. It took me a few days to tell my boss I was sick and get my job back, but in the end it was worth it. I learned some things about Erin, and about the world, and about the man who was watching Erin.<br><br>His name is Dennis. Dennis seems to be the manager of some sort of….<br><br>I don’t know what to call it.<br><br>It’s so hard to explain.<br><br>From what I can tell, there are thousands of men like Dennis. They don’t seem to be human. They’re not cultists, or agents, but they work for the government.<br><br>There are thousands and thousands of them, and they watch thousands and thousands of people.<br><br>Sometimes, I think they actually know the people they are watching, or used to. But they don’t always.<br><br>I don’t think Dennis knows Erin in real life, because she’s never heard of him.<br><br>Dennis is a tall and lanky man with short black hair, a stubby beard, and a pair of green eyes. He has a blue shirt – collared, with the sleeves rolled up – and he wears glasses with thin, black frames.<br><br>That’s all I’ve seen of him, but I know more about him than that.<br><br>You see, when you use the PAN Card you don’t just fall asleep. You go to sleep and you go into a dream.<br><br>When you go into a dream, you see these people and you get to follow them.<br><br>It’s not like a movie. It’s not like a TV show. It’s not even like a video game. Your just… there.<br><br>I’ve been to three dreams now, and I know a bunch of things about Dennis.<br><br>I know that Erin was just a random assignment for him. I know that he gets paid very well for what he does – but he has to do it basically his whole life. I know that he grew up watching people. I know that he has a stake in Erin. I know that he comments on her every day, and he’s allowed to intervene in certain situations. I know that he takes notes, and he writes reports, and he lets other people look at him. I know that he’s very interested in Erin, and he’s interested in me.<br><br>He doesn’t know how the PAN Card works. Neither do I. But we both know that it works, and that Erin could probably do whatever she wants with it.<br><br>Dennis is not the only one who watches Erin. There is a woman named Pammy who watches her too. Pammy is a bit big, and she has long brown hair and a long brown beard. She always wears a yellow sundress, and she’s the friendliest woman I’ve ever seen while I’m sleeping. She’s been watching Erin since she was a little girl.<br><br>I don’t think Pammy would hurt Erin, but I do think that Pammy is a little bit too interested. I know that Pammy likes Erin in a way that is a little bit too close, and I know that she’s disappointed that Erin doesn’t act more like a grown girl – she’s disappointed that Erin doesn’t explore her own body, or masturbate, or like boys. She’s disappointed that Erin doesn’t like her.<br><br>But I know that Pammy is a friend to Erin in a way. I know that she likes Erin, and she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her, and she’s always happy when Erin does well, and she’s always sad when Erin does poorly.<br><br>I don’t think Dennis is a friend to Erin in the way Pammy is. I think Dennis likes Erin, but he likes her in a way that is smarmy, and smutty, and a little bit disgusting. It’s not that he’s attracted to her, it’s that he sees something in her that he doesn’t see in other people.<br><br>I think that Erin is a lot more interesting than I am. I think that Dennis agrees with that, and he knows he’ll never be as interesting as her – and I think he’s a little bit jealous because of that.<br><br>A few weeks ago, I had a weird feeling. It made me feel like something was wrong, but I didn’t know what. It felt like being at a funeral, or being in the elevator with someone who is vomiting silently.<br><br>I don’t know what made me feel that way. I think I had gotten a little too obsessed with the dreams. But I used the PAN Card again, and it worked once more.<br><br>I was dreaming, and I saw Dennis. I saw him sitting in a chair, with his arms up over his head in surrender. I saw a man in a white shirt, with a big smile on his face and a thick beard. He was standing with a pair of scissors in his hands, and he had just cut off all of Dennis’s hair.<br><br>I saw that Dennis’s hair was short, but it was longer at the bottom, and it curled slightly down around his ears. I saw that as the man cut off his hair, it fell to the floor, and I could see that it was slightly curly at the ends even when it had fallen.<br><br>I don’t know why, but something about that really touched me. I had never really liked Dennis before, but something about seeing him lose his hair made me feel sorry for him. I realized that I had been treating him a little unfairly.<br><br>I didn’t know why his hair was being cut off, but I knew that it was being cut off for a reason. I saw that the man had a little pair of clippers, and he was buzzing Dennis’s hair down to the skull.<br><br>I saw that his hair was growing in the back, and I don’t know if it was growing in the front, but it was slightly long on the sides. I saw that the man was careful as he cut the hair on Dennis’s head.<br><br>I saw that Dennis was sitting in a white chair in a white room. The room was small, and there were grey walls that seemed to be made out of plastic or something. There was no one else in the room with Dennis and the man cutting his hair, but there were several people in grey jumpsuits standing outside of the room in the hall.<br><br>I don’t know what they were doing, but I think they were guards. I don’t know why they were there, but I think they were watching the room.<br><br>I was confused. I had a lot of questions, but no answers. I didn’t know what was going on, or why it was going on. But I knew that something was going on, and I knew that I had to find out what.<br><br>I was starting to feel a little bit sick now. Something about the sight of Dennis’s hair falling to the floor made me feel weird. I don’t know if it was the sight or the smell or the sound, but something about seeing Dennis’s hair falling to the floor made me feel sick.<br><br>I tried to stop myself from throwing up. I took deep breaths, and I tried to focus on what was going on. I didn’t want to miss anything.<br><br>As I watched, I realized that the room was