The Observer

When you think no one is looking as you pause, surreptitiously look over your shoulder and adjust your underwear, you're wrong. Have to flatulate and hope nobody detects the foul result? Guess again. All the secret exchanges, all those covert gestures, that happen everyday in the public domain, are open to inspection. There's a superhero capturing it for posterity. The Observer is on the scene.

Most of his acquaintances would agree he was born with this power, though positions and responsibilities he has had during his lifetime enhanced it to the point where, in a moment of self examination, he realized there was a job that needed to be done and he was the person to do it.

He walks through the throngs of humanity and catches those things that weren't intended to be caught. It's almost as if there is a magnet drawing him to the place where someone is about to commit a faux pas. He has no remorse for this ability. If you choose to air your laundry in public, you have to take responsibility for the knowledge that someone could, and someone is watching. Your laundry is sure to be aired on a public clothesline.

Of course, as a superhero, fighting the just fight, this power is invaluable. Criminals contemplating shady deals would cringe when his name is mentioned. If only they knew of his existence. Drug deals, trysts, swaps, espionage, are all transparent to him. He's drawn to the scene, moves in and the jig is up.

He's impossible to detect. I can't say for sure that he can become invisible or that he's been trained as an expert in concealment. Maybe it's just a highly developed genetic ability to blend. It's possible that he has some sort of chameleon nature because people don't seem to notice he's there, a silent witness to all those bloopers. He may be that person you see sitting at the bus stop, on the park bench, or staring into space at the table in the outdoor restaurant. Or maybe he's the passenger looking absently out the window of the bus as it drives away.

He wears no costume, or none that anyone can remember. Costumes for superheroes seem to make them conspicuous, which he obviously doesn't want. It would be hard for him to do his job if he had to wear a costume proclaiming The Observer is here. A flashy suit of colorful leotards has no place in the everyday life he examines. No cape flapping in the wind is necessary. His costume fits his nature well. His costume is no costume at all.

One facet of his power is an amazing attention to detail. He unobtrusively notices looks exchanged between passengers boarding buses. He notices who sits next to whom. He notices who arrives early and who arrives late. Body language is his native language. He seems to quietly sit and take in all the nuances of the people going about their business around him and then comes up with the most remarkable conclusions. This person's here selling drugs, that girl is waiting for her sister, this gentleman is stalking that girl over there in the corner. Invariably, he's correct. I was amazed on one occasion. During a session of bar crawling in Thailand we wound up in a beer bar in Pattaya. After a moments perusal he casually warned us to be careful who we were dealing with as there were at least three very pretty ladyboys in the bar. We spent the rest of the night pondering that information and trying to glean for ourselves how he had come to this conclusion and which were the three..

What he does with all the information he witnesses, I will never know. Information like this could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. I assume this information finds its way to the right hands. Criminals come to justice as a result of his actions but those actions are never documented. Knowledge of his activities would be counterproductive to the continuation of those activities. His opponents are led to a false sense of security by being unaware of his scrutiny.

But he is a superhero after all. I think superheroes are held to a pretty high moral standard, a higher standard than yours or certainly mine. I think he's an ethical guy but, despite knowing him all these years, I can't really engage him in a discourse on superhero ethics. I couldn't actually point him out to you. I don't remember what he looks like.