Eye Witness

I watch people for a living. It sounds creepy, doesn’t it. But, it’s true. My life is spent driving around and capturing streets and homes and signs all without people realizing it. It’s a job people don’t think about until they Google a destination and use the street view. Without me, there’s no street view. The camera just records the movements of the car and it uploads directly to Google.

Most of my days are pretty standard – driving around, waving, using some controllers to make sure I get all the images I need. It gets boring on the road, so sometimes I like to make up stories about the homes I photograph and the people inside them. Sometimes they’re rich country club owners with fake marriages, or just a little family who play games around the dinner table every night. Sometimes they’re spies and sometimes they’re celebrities. I never get to talk to anyone, though. My job specifies that contact with the pedestrians and citizens is prohibited for privacy reasons. So, my imagination is the only thing I have that connects me to the people I interact with everyday.

The other day, I was driving through the suburbs – you know the ones with the rich white people? Those are my favourite roads to go down because their lives look so interesting. These roads are where I come up with my best stories – family dramas, unfaithful husbands, hidden drugs, spoiled rich kids going crazy – it’s scandal after scandal.

I was driving past this one huge house with floor to ceiling windows and a glamourous chandelier hanging in the middle for everyone too admire and covet. The chandelier’s glistening diamonds reflected the sun’s light, brightening everything around it. It looked like a spotlight that was meant to get everyone’s attention. I almost stopped the car, but I kept going – just a bit slower so I could get a good look at it. My mind was going crazy with ideas of what the story behind this house was. As I continued to drive at a walker’s pace past the majestic mansion, I noticed a girl – a woman actually – staring right at me from inside the house.

Startled, I slammed on the break – jolting my body forward and causing my stomach to ram into the steering wheel. I pressed my hand against my abdomen, rubbing where it hurt, and looked back up at the house only to see that the woman had disappeared. I shook my head and continued to drive forward away from the mysterious house.

The next day I was supposed to be on a different route, but I went back to the house, slowing down once again to get a better look. This time, I tried to make it a little less obvious that I was studying the house, but it’s hard when you’re driving a Google street car. This time, there was no one staring back at me, so I put the car in park and rolled down the window, stretching my neck a bit to get a better look. The chandelier’s light was blinding, so I put on my sunglasses. I imagined what life would be like in that house – how I would order around my maid and butler, having them do everything and anything I wanted. I imagined the dozen cars I would keep in my 12 garage and how I would drive a new one every day. I wanted a life like that so badly that I knew I had to have it.

While I was I lost in my head about the life I knew I would never have, the woman from yesterday walked up the drive way. I was able to see her more clearly this time and noticed more of her features. She was average height and had long dirty blonde hair that was held in a half ponytail. She looked around middle age and was wearing a black dress with matching stilettos that clicked on the driveway.  She walked to the front door, glancing to the left and to the right before opening the door quickly and getting inside.

Looking around the house, I pulled the key out of the car’s ignition, put my sunglasses, and walked out of my car towards the mansion. I jogged across the street and onto the front yard, hiding behind some bushes so I wasn’t seen and immediately considered a pervert or stalker. I just wanted to know more about the house and the girl. I peeked my head over the top of the bush to catch a glimpse inside the house. I saw the woman that was in the car, as well as a man, around the same age, with a grey-speckled goatee and a full head of hair. The two seemed to be in a heated conversation, the tone and volume of their voices growing stronger with each minute. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be listening to this. I also knew that I wasn’t supposed to even be at this house. I was supposed to be on a different route, doing my job. There was just something about this house that was drawing me in – like a magnetic force that I couldn’t pull away from no matter how hard I tried.

I was pulled out of my thoughts with a loud crash – the sound of glass breaking. I looked into the window and saw the woman huddled in a corner; her hands were wrapped around herself as her only source of armor. Her red, puffy face was distorted as the yelling grew louder and louder. The man went over to the corner and shoved the woman further into the wall, his hand grasped around her throat. The woman fumbled trying to get the man’s hands off her, pleading with him to let her go. Seconds passed and I could feel my heart pumping. Without thinking, I ran to the front door and quietly opening it. I grabbed one of the kitchen knives that sat in it’s wooden block and walked towards the room where this horror was taking place.

In what felt like a drunken rush, I came up behind the man and plunged the knife into his back. He fell to the ground, releasing the woman from his deathly grip. Immediately her hands rubbed her swollen throat, coughing and wheezing as she tried to grab her breath; she looked up at me with a mixture of fear and relief, just having witnessed me murder her attacker. I looked down at the pool of blood that had begun to soak into my shoes. Grabbing the girl, I ran with her out of the house and across the street, leaving incriminating evidence and bloody footsteps behind us. It wasn’t until I got closer to the car that I remembered the camera on top of my van, the red light flashing as if it was laughing at me.