The Paperweight Watcher

Three years after I finished my graduate studies, I landed a junior archivist position at the Meridian County Historical Society. The salary was modest, so I had to find a roommate. A coworker knew someone named Elise who needed a place, and we agreed to share a two-bedroom in the old Barlow Building—a converted warehouse with exposed brick and creaky radiators. We moved in on the same day, meeting for the first time in the narrow hallway. Elise was a whirlwind of constant chatter, her phone buzzing with messages from a dozen different group chats. She thrived on upheaval—impromptu parties, dramatic breakups, and public spats with her on-again, off-again boyfriend. I kept to myself, spending long hours at the archive and coming home to my quiet room with a book.

In the first few weeks, I noticed an odd sensation when I was alone in the apartment. It wasn’t the usual creaks of an old building; it was a charged stillness, like the air before a thunderstorm. I’d be reading, and suddenly the hair on my neck would rise. I’d look up, expecting someone to be there, but the room was empty. The feeling wasn’t constant—it would arrive without warning and linger for minutes, then vanish. I told myself it was exhaustion or the building’s quirks, but I couldn’t shake the sense of being observed.

One evening, while Elise was out with friends, I was alone in the living room. The feeling descended like a weight. I froze, my eyes scanning the room. On the mantelpiece stood a small, dust-covered object I’d never noticed before—a paperweight shaped like a smooth, grey stone, about the size of a fist. It seemed out of place, as if it had always been there but I had overlooked it. As I stared at it, the feeling intensified, pressing against my temples. I walked over and picked it up. It was cold and heavy, and for a moment, I felt a faint pulse from within, like a heartbeat.

I decided to ask Elise about the paperweight. The next day, she shrugged and said, ‘I’ve never seen that thing before. Maybe it came with the place.’ She seemed indifferent, but I noticed her eyes dart to the mantelpiece for a split second. I didn’t press further. That night, I dreamt of a narrow, windowless room filled with shelves of glass jars, each containing a small, grey object. In the center of the room lay a stone table, and on it rested the paperweight. A voice, dry as old paper, whispered, ‘You found me.’ I woke with a start, my heart pounding.

Over the next week, the presence grew stronger. It followed me from room to room, always silent. I began to feel its ‘gaze’ even during the day, at work, as if it had latched onto me. I tried to ignore it, but panic set in. I decided to get rid of the paperweight. I wrapped it in a cloth and drove to the county dump, tossing it into a bin of refuse. The moment it left my hands, the air felt lighter. I drove home with relief, but when I entered my apartment, the presence was already there, waiting. A whisper, faint but unmistakable, brushed my ear: ‘You can’t discard me. I’ve become part of you.’ The paperweight sat on my bedside table, as if it had never been moved.

I confronted Elise. She grew pale, then confessed: ‘I found it in the basement of my old building. It belonged to a woman who used to live there. She was obsessed with privacy—she never let anyone in. One day, she vanished. The landlord gave me some of her things. The paperweight was in a box. I thought it was just a trinket.’ Elise’s voice trembled. ‘I started feeling watched too, but I thought it was my imagination. I put it on the mantelpiece to forget about it.’ We decided to research the building’s history. At the archive, I found an old newspaper article from 1985: a woman named Marguerite Halsey had lived alone in a small apartment on the site where the Barlow Building now stood. She was a recluse, and after her disappearance, workers gutted the place. The only item left behind was a grey stone paperweight.

As I read the article, the presence thickened around me. I glanced at my desk clock: exactly 3:33 PM. A whisper, as clear as a spoken word, filled my mind: ‘You will never be alone again.’ I realized then that the paperweight wasn’t an object; it was a prison for Marguerite’s restless spirit. She had desperate for companionship, for anyone to feel her presence. Now that I had acknowledged her, she latched onto me. Elise and I tried everything—we took the paperweight to a priest, a medium, even a physicist. The medium told us that Marguerite was cursed to remain in that stone until someone willingly accepted her into their life. But the more we tried to banish her, the more oppressive the presence became. Elise moved out, leaving me with the apartment and the paperweight.

Now, months later, I still live there. The presence is my constant companion. I’ve learned to live with it, even to find a strange comfort in its silent scrutiny. I’ve taken to speaking aloud to it, telling it about my day. In response, I sometimes feel a subtle shift in the air, a gentle pressure against my mind, as if it’s trying to form words. Last night, I placed the paperweight on my pillow and whispered, ‘You’re not alone anymore.’ For the first time, I felt a warmth emanate from the stone, a faint pulse like a grateful heartbeat. I know I can never get rid of it, and perhaps I don’t want to. But sometimes, in the dead of night, I hear a faint, mournful cry—a voice trapped in stone, whispering, ‘Thank you,’ over and over.