I brushed my fingers against the screen, tears streaming down my eyes. The person on the other side, how is he surviving. I knew that I could not do anything but watch, and it was killing me.

I stared at the search history, scrolling down from the most recent. How to tell your loved ones goodbye; How to create a will; How much does a grave cost; How much does a funeral cost; Cost of antibiotics for plague; Antibiotics for plague, Bubonic plague, What is Yersinia pestis.

That was all in the past day. He was dying.

I think I knew him more intimately than his own parents, for I saw the thoughts he wouldn’t say out loud. I think that’s why I loved him. It was not the romantic kind of love that people used all the time, it was philia love. I never meant to care. I thought he was just going to be another assignment, one of the many I had. He was for a while, but I always found myself coming back. I even tried to use the little data he gave me to locate him, I just wanted to see who he was. Who was this man, this loving, caring man? He was always donating, whether it was money, time or blood.

I wanted to hold him, to tell him somehow that he wasn’t alone. That there was someone who knew his pain.

A new search popped up: ‘Flower sending shops’. A quick glance at his emails showed that his friend’s mother was dying. Don’t you ever care for yourself! I wanted to scream. You’re dying!! I wanted to throw my monitor. But all I could do was silently cry. Even then, my coworkers were looking at me. Another popped up: ‘good animal shelters’. And another: ‘good ways to commit suicide.”

I flipped through some of my other assignments for about 30 minutes before checking his account again. There was one new search: ‘Agent, thank you for not calling in the feds on me for the last search. I want to go my own way. It’s been a good ride.’

The next day, I got assigned a new person to watch.