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I BelieveGovernance and Philosophy in America A Top 10 Apple Philosophy Podcast Author: Joel K. Douglas
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The Watchman
Monday, 26 January, 2026
Kansas. Summer, 1936. The bluffs above the Missouri.The river didn’t look dangerous. Wide and brown and slow. Trees leaning over the banks. A boy could stand on the bluff and think he understood what he was looking at.He was fourteen. Watching a man jump from the railroad bridge.Everyone did it. You climbed the trestle. Leapt. Hit the water. Swam to the bank. He’d done it himself, twice. The shock of cold. Hard swim to the shallows. You came up laughing.The undertow you couldn’t see. The surface looked the same everywhere. Brown and slow and safe.The man jumped. Hit the water clean. Came up once. Twice.Didn’t come up again.People were shouting. Someone ran for a rope. The boy took a step toward the edge. Stopped. His hands were shaking. He didn’t jump.They found the body two miles downstream. Tangled in the roots of a cottonwood, water still pulling at his legs.The man’s face looked surprised.There is the Leviathan.He moves in the deep,in the playground of God.He waits for his foodin its season.God asks,Can you draw him out with a fishhook?Put a cord through his nose?Make a covenant with him?Act I. The FloorboardCopenhagen, spring 1945, three weeks after the Germans left.He talked too much. He knew it.The city was full of people who’d spent four years learning to be silent. How to walk past soldiers without being seen. How to keep their faces empty. Voices low. Thoughts locked behind their teeth.He moved through it like weather. Big hands, loud laugh, American uniform. They’d won. The Germans were gone. What was everyone so quiet about?She was sitting alone at a table in the jazz club. Blonde. Thin in a way that made him look twice. She held her glass like she wasn’t sure she had permission.He sat down without asking.“You speak English?”“A little.”“More than a little, I think.”She didn’t smile. Didn’t leave. Touched her hair.He talked. Couldn’t help it. The silence in the room pressed against him like something physical, and he pushed back the only way he knew how. Words. Noise. The sound of his own voice filling the space.He talked about the war. His unit. The things they’d seen. He talked about Kansas. Bluffs. River. Sky that went on forever. He talked about what he was going to do when he got home. Big plans. She listened. Let him talk. She was good at that. Later, he’d understand. She had learned to be invisible. He had learned to be impossible to ignore. By June, the city remembered itself.The canals turned silver in the long northern light. People sat outside, chairs scraping on cobblestones, glasses catching the sun. She laughed too loud one night and heard herself and didn’t stop.They walked the city. The parts the Germans hadn’t touched and the parts they had. Fresh paint on corner shops. New glass in old windows.She walked close to the buildings. Kept her voice low. Moved like someone who’d learned not to take up space.He walked in the middle of the street. Talked loud enough for people across the canal to hear.She didn’t ask him to be quieter. He didn’t ask her to be louder.One night, by the lakes, he put his arm around her. She let him.It happened the way those things happened. He had cigarettes. Real ones, American tobacco. She had a room with a window that faced the harbor. The city was broken. They were young. Enough reason for anything.He kept talking. Couldn’t stop. She learned to let the noise wash over her like water. Sometimes she’d surface long enough to ask a question, and he’d be off again. Kansas, the river, the bluffs, what he was going to build when he got home.She didn’t talk about the occupation. Didn’t talk about her father, taken in ‘43, who never came back. Didn’t talk about what she’d done to survive. The decisions no one should have to make at nineteen.One night, she showed him the emerald.She kept it in a box beneath a loose floorboard. German boots had walked on those same boards. She pulled back the rug, pried up the board, lifted it out like something holy.It was small. Cold. Cloudy. The color of ice under green water.“Family,” he said. Not a question.“My great-great-grandmother’s.”He turned it over in his palm. Felt the weight of it. If he wanted it, it could be his. Cloudy. Old. Probably not worth much.She was watching him. Waiting. The way people wait at the edge of water.He handed it back. “Nice,” he said.The man came up once. Twice. Not again.He reached for a cigarette. Lit it with the Zippo. Started talking about Kansas.She put the stone back in the box. Back under the floor.He shipped out in September. They stood on the dock. He held her hands. Said the things men say.“Keep that emerald safe,” he said. Trying to smile.“I will.”He kissed her. Walked up the gangway. He saluted the flag, and the Officer of the Deck gave him permission to board. He turned to look for her.She was already walking away.He sent letters. November. December. Snow in Kansas. Frozen river. Winter silence. A long one in January that said he meant it, he’d come back, she should wait for him.She folded it carefully. Put it in a drawer with the others.He waited until June.The silence wasn’t an accident. It was an answer.Once, he was not vast.Once, he was small.He swam among other creatures.He learned hunger.He learned taking.No one remembers when he grew too large.No one remembers the first timeno one could stop him.Act II. The VaultCopenhagen, April 1949. A palace room full of signatures and glassware.Four years since the war ended. The city had rebuilt itself. That’s what people said. Stone by stone, street by street. The canals ran clean. The shops had glass. The streetlights worked.He knew better. He’d seen the ledgers.American steel in the bridges. American wheat in the bakeries. Thirteen billion dollars across sixteen countries.He didn’t resent it. You don’t rebuild a continent because you expect gratitude. The Soviets were already in Berlin and Prague. Pushing their iron curtain further. Reaching for anything that wasn’t nailed down.You rebuild because you’re watching the water, and no one else is.He wasn’t a sergeant anymore. He wore a suit. Good wool. Italian shoes. He had a firm handshake. He expected his calls returned.He didn’t expect to see her.She was standing by the window when he walked in. Blonde. Older. The softness of girlhood gone. She was talking to a Belgian. Something about transit routes. She held herself like a woman who belonged in the room.He stopped. 1941. The Germans. Denmark couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t hide. Couldn’t fight. A small country with a long coastline and not enough friends.The Americans came for the emerald before the Germans could take it. Took it to Washington. Kept it safe.But they didn’t just keep it safe. They used it.Greenland. The rock and ice at the top of the world that everyone forgot about until they needed it. The Americans built runways on the ice. Radar stations in the mountains. Weather posts that tracked the storms. They watched German submarines from the rock. Guided convoys through the North Atlantic.The emerald wasn’t in a drawer. It was in a command center. It won a war.And when the war ended, they gave it back.That was always the deal. Keep it safe. Use it well. Give it back.She turned, mid-sentence, as if she felt it.Four years of silence. No letters. No explanation.She excused herself from the Belgian. Walked toward him. Unhurried.“You came back,” she said.“I wrote.”She didn’t look away. “I know.”They talked. He asked about her work. She was part of the Danish delegation now. Her family had old connections, a name that opened doors even after an occupation.She asked about his. Defense. Contracts. Building things.“You’ve done well,” she said.“I got lucky.”“You got rich.”He laughed. She didn’t.She reached for her glass. Water, not wine. He didn’t know why he noticed.A ring. Gold. Simple. He looked at it too long.“Married,” he said. Not a question.A brief ceremony.Twelve nations. Twelve signatures. Simple language. An attack against one is an attack against all.He signed with a fountain pen. Blue ink. His name, large. Confident.He thought about what America had already done. The Germans were coming. Denmark couldn’t stop them. The Americans came for the emerald before the Germans could take it. Kept it safe. Used it well. Gave it back.That was always the deal.She signed after him. Small letters. Neat. The ring caught the light.Afterward, there was champagne. The murmur of diplomats pretending the world was safe.She stood across the room. Holding a glass she hadn’t touched.Their eyes met. The way they had in the jazz club, in the room with the window. Something passed. The shape of what he didn’t take. And what she didn’t give.She looked away first.He didn’t. He couldn’t.They thought they could build a cage for him. Twelve of them. Stone and iron and promises.The Leviathan watched. Patient. He learned to wait.Act III. The CommitmentCopenhagen, winter 1951. The vault is finished. The paint is still wet.Men in work clothes carried crates through a side door. The air smelled like sawdust and cold stone. Someone tracked snow in. It melted into small dark puddles on the floor.He came back. To see it done. To place his treasure.They moved the table from the palace. The chairs. Hung their photograph on the wall. Twelve faces, young and certain. Put it in a room in the back of the vault. The flag room. Fabric and thread. The original documents, behind glass.He went in first.He carried a torch. Bronze. Heavy. Cast from the same mold as the one in the harbor back home. They gave him the center case. Best glass. Best light.He stood there a moment after they locked it. Hand on the case. She went last.He watched her from across the room. A guard opened a case in the back corner. Furthest from the entrance. Smallest case.She carried the emerald herself. Wrapped in cloth. Cloudy even under good light.She set it down. Adjusted it once. Stepped back.The glass closed. The lock turned.She didn’t look at him to see if he noticed.He noticed. The torch in the center. The emerald in the corner. For a moment, something…He paused. That seemed right to him.There was a reception. Chandeliers and champagne. Twelve flags on the wall. They congratulated themselves on what they’d built.He looked for her across the room.She wasn’t there. Someone said she’d left early. Her boys.He stood by the window. Watched the snow fall through the streetlight. Finished his drink. Set down the glass.He thought about the torch in its case. The emerald in its corner. The photograph on the wall. Twelve faces who believed in their commitment. Watching the snow fall on Copenhagen, he believed.That night, he walked alone.The canals were black, cut by thin lines of light from the streetlamps. Somewhere, a radio played jazz behind a curtain. The sound came and went as he passed.He stopped on a bridge. Leaned on the stone rail. The water moved beneath him without hurry.He heard footsteps. Didn’t turn.A man beside him. A shadow in a gray coat. An East wind.“You believe it?” the man asked.He didn’t answer.“You think they’ll come? When the undertow pulls?”The undertow. He hadn’t used that word in years.“Yes,” he said. “I do.”“And her? If they came for your torch. Would she come?”He thought about the woman by the window. The ring on her hand. The silence.“Yes,” he said. “She would.” The man looked at him. Didn’t nod. Didn’t agree. And then the man was gone. Footsteps fading over wet stone.He stayed on the bridge a long time. The water moved beneath him. A man laughed somewhere under an awning. A cigarette burned down to his fingers.He thought about the promise. Twelve nations. Twelve flags. No one drowns alone. For forty years, they stood together. The wolves circled, but they didn’t attack. The covenant was a vault, and the vault held. They stood with him. Flags, full. Then the wall fell.He watched it on television. People with hammers and champagne. Strangers kissing on rubble that used to mean something. The wolves dissolving, retreating, eating themselves.The world celebrated. And he celebrated with them. He thought about the man on the bluff. He came up once. Twice. The face that looked surprised.The undertow. It never stops. The surface looks calm. Brown and slow and safe.One by one, the others climbed down from the tower.Peace dividend. That’s what they called it. The money they saved by not standing watch. They voted for schools. Hospitals. Pensions. These were good reasons. Weren’t the wolves gone? The wall was down. The war was over.He kept paying. Alone now. The flags still hung on the wall. But the watchtower was empty. Except for him.Then the wolves came for the torch. Not from the east. From a cave. A desert. A clear blue morning when the sky fell down.An attack on one is an attack on all.She sent her sons.He went to the first funeral. Thomas. Twenty-six years old. The mother at the grave. He stood in the back. Didn’t speak.What could he say? Thank you wasn’t enough. I’m sorry wasn’t either.But the ice was melting. The emerald in the back corner. The rock and ice at the top of the world.He saw what was there. What it was worth now.God asks, Will he make a covenant with you? Speak to you soft words? Keep his promises?No. He will not.He grows hungry.He forgets the covenantshe made when he was small.He sees what he wants.He takes what he sees.Act IV. The SilenceFrom the tower, he could see. The ice began to melt.He noticed it before the others. He was always watching the water. Passages that had been frozen since before there were maps, opened. The rock and ice at the top of the world. Waking up.The wolves noticed too.He went to her.“I need the emerald.”“No.”“You can’t protect it. Dog sleds. An island the size of Western Europe.”“It’s not yours to protect.”He stood at the window, watching the snow fall, and he thought about 1941. The Americans who’d come for the emerald before the Germans could take it. Who’d kept it safe. Who’d used it to win a war. Who’d given it back.For safekeeping, the note had said.He’d built the radar stations. Maintained the base. Watched the water while they built schools.“The wolves are circling,” he said. “You won’t protect it. You won’t let me protect it.”She didn’t answer.He found her again at a reception. Marble floors. Champagne. The same room where they’d signed the covenant. Different faces now. Younger. None of them remembered what it cost to build the vault.“It’s not safe,” he said.Something crossed her face. Not anger. Exhaustion. The weight of sons who didn’t come home.“I’ve been protecting it for eighty years.”“Protecting it.” She looked at him. “Or waiting to take it?”He didn’t answer.“The emerald is not yours.”“And you’re holding a piece of paper pretending it’s a wall.”She set down her glass.Her answer? Silence.She walked away.He watched her go. The woman who’d survived by being invisible. Who’d shown him the most precious thing she owned and never forgiven him for not wanting it enough.For a moment, he wondered if she was right.She still didn’t understand. The most important piece of geography America didn’t own. He’d given it back when it was worthless. Eighty years, he’d kept it safe. Now it was worth something, and she acted like he was the thief.If she refused to protect it, he wasn’t sure it was hers to keep.Even the Leviathan owes God a death.We all do.But not yet.Not tonight.The Leviathan does what he wants.Who can subdue the Leviathan?Act V. The NightThe watchman does not know the hour. He knows only: the proud one’s core is crooked within.The Leviathan feeds. Grows. Forgets that even it arose from the same depths.We all owe God a death. The Leviathan does what it wants. The watchman does what he must.From the tower, the watchman sees…Late, after closing. The vault is quiet. The flag room, unlocked.He came in through the back. The old door. The one they never used anymore.He had a key. Of course he had a key. He’d paid for the locks. The guards were watching the emerald. The others were watching the emerald. Everyone was watching the emerald. The sons she’d sent were still in the ground.He was done talking about the emerald.He walked past the room with the emerald to the flag room. A hallway no one guarded. He walked slowly. No hurry. He had time. The door was unlocked. Who would steal flags?He stepped inside. It smelled like old cloth and paper. Twelve flags hung. The promise behind glass. The photograph watched from the wall. Her face among them. Small. Neat. The way she signed her name. For a moment, his chest tightened. Something he didn’t want to name.He thought about the boy on the bluff. The man who came up once. Twice. Not again. The room with the window. Emerald in her palm. The moment he handed it back.The curtains were old. The paper was dry. Seventy years of certainty, boxed and filed and forgotten.From the tower, the watchman sees…He reached into his pocket.The Zippo. Black crackle metal. Rounded edges, worn smooth. He’d carried it since the war. Since Copenhagen. Since the room with the window and the woman who’d shown him an emerald he didn’t take.He ran his thumb across the worn edges. Held it in his hand. Get full access to I Believe at joelkdouglas.substack.com/subscribe
