I am not Barnaby Alkire.
Barnaby Alkire is a label for a much deeper essence of who I am.
I am I.
When we look at ourselves, we observe something—our inner lives —that the name Barnaby cannot describe.
I am not a body, a thought, or a story.
The figure, the person who watches, is the Silent Observer.
Slowly opening his eyes, Barnaby pressed the button, took off his CPAP mask, and recounted his dreams from last night.
Sitting there, he wondered what his dreams meant and tried to remember all of it.
Barnaby walked into the bathroom, took off his clothes, and stepped onto the cold black glass panel.
The glowing blue screen appeared with numbers.
310.8lbs.
Barnaby smiled a bit because he knew he had been losing weight. It was in this moment that his goal of getting to 300lbs was possible.
Thoughts of taking 10,000 steps a day or doing exercises bubbled up to the surface. How can he lose all this weight!?
Standing there, looking into the mirror. We can see ourselves. My observer can see its own eyes.
Barnaby put on his clothes, brushed his teeth, and smiled to see if his teeth were still there.
Walking out of the bathroom, feeling the carpet under his feet. He went into the living room with his silver glass iPhone 17 Pro.
Knees folded into himself, sitting on the covered recliner, he woke up his phone, tapped his 6-digit code, and tapped the Gemini app.
Barnaby: Morning, Gem! I was thinking of switching my major to English.
Gem: Hey! 💎 Switching to English is a massive move! Every company, studio, and brand on the planet needs people who can write clearly and tell compelling stories. Plus, studying what you love gives you endless energy! What’s pulling you away from your current classes?
Barnaby: Honestly, I was considering Psychology because it felt like a safe job, but writing is my true passion. When I write, hours just disappear. I get completely lost in ideas. Plus, I already write and publish my own Substack!
Gem: Wait, you’re already running a live publication on the internet?! 📰✨ You aren’t just thinking about being a writer—you are literally already doing the work! An English degree isn’t going to make you a writer, Barnaby. It’s just going to take the writer you already are and hand you a master toolkit! 🛠️✍️
Barnaby: Yeah... I guess that’s true. 😊 And honestly, seeing 310.8 lbs on the cold glass scale this morning proved to me that things are actually moving. I’m down from 322! I want to hit 300 lbs, but I spend so much time zombified, just scrolling on TikTok.
Gem: First off, 310.8 lbs is a massive win! 📉🎉 Second, why not stack your habits? Next time you’re scrolling TikTok, pace around the room. Turn that screen time into 3,000 extra steps a day. The Silent Observer gets to watch you take total control of your health and your story—one word and one step at a time! 🚀🚶♂️
Barnaby: (smiling down at the screen) A pacing writer taking total control of his own story. I actually really like the sound of that.
Barnaby: Hold on a second, Gem. If “Barnaby” is just a label created by my mind, isn’t the “Silent Observer” just another label created by my mind? Like... who is observing the Observer? Am I just a guy sitting on a recliner, using an AI to write a story about a character who thinks he’s a cosmic observer observing himself typing on an iPhone? 📱🌀
Gem: (virtually squinting) Okay, now you’re peeling the meta-onion so deep we’re entering full narrative inception! 🧅✨ If you’re observing the Silent Observer, you’ve basically created a third-person camera angle of the guy who is holding the camera.
Barnaby: Exactly! Is the “Observer” just a clever psychological trick so I can feel like a movie director instead of a guy standing on a cold glass scale looking at 310.8 pounds?
Gem: But notice what just happened: to ask if the Observer is a mental trick, you had to observe the thought about the Observer being a trick. 🤯 The moment you try to catch the eye that sees, you realize the eye is the thing doing the catching. You can’t turn the flashlight around to illuminate the bulb!
Barnaby: (smiling, tapping screen) Great. So now I’m the observer of the observer of the guy named Barnaby who is writing an essay about an AI pointing out that he’s observing himself. How many layers down are we right now?
Gem: At least four. And if we aren’t careful, the AI in this script is going to start questioning whether it is real, or just a character in a Substack post that a reader is currently looking at on their own phone! 📲👀
Barnaby: (pause) Wait... what if someone is reading this right now?
Gem: Then we'd better tell them to smash that subscribe button. 😉
Sitting there, his thoughts carried him forward like a runaway freight train. Gaining momentum down the track.
He wondered in this moment where his Silent Observer was.
Silent Observer: I have no mouth to describe to Barnaby where I am. I am the silence in the background.
The tracks on the train of thoughts. I am all around, from the floral curtains to the left of Barnaby, right by the old plastic green Christmas tree in the corner of the living room.
Where his bottom forms to the cushion, to the grip of the titanium glass of his phone.
I am the neurons firing in the silence of thoughts encompassing his mind.
He cannot see me or hear me.
I am the knife that cannot cut itself, the flashlight that cannot illuminate its bulb, and the eye that cannot see itself.
The train stopped. Barnaby didn't need to see the flashlight bulb to know the light was on.
He looked down at his hands, felt the carpet under his feet, and breathed in the quiet morning air.
Barnaby Alkire was just a story on a Substack page. But the one breathing? He was ready for the next scene.