A Friend of the Glass

One night a friend pretended to be my stranger.

They appeared at my window on August 7th right around 7pm, when I would have been cutting up the pork to feed to the dogs. I had several dogs, each smaller than the next, with the idea being that I might need a different-sized dog for different moods and depressions. A large depression required my Saint Bernard, SCOTUS, whereas a bad day would simply call for my terrier, Boxcutter.

None of the dogs barked when a friend came to the window. She knocked once and the first knock was an introduction. I needed no introduction, because she was well-known to me. We had been intimate many times over the years,and after the last time, I asked if she would consider simply being friends, which meant breaking off an engagement we had agreed to and an October wedding the following year.

She wept quietly, but then concurred that this would be for the best, since our lovemaking always resulted in injury to one or both of us, and a marriage would most likely destroy our bodies, if not something worse. She also mispronounced my name constantly.

Up to that point, she had never asked to enter my house through a window, so I assumed it was a stranger when I heard the knocking. I had been posting online, asking anyone with murderous impulses or erratic behavior to come to my address and frighten me by tapping on the window. I should have known that nobody had taken me up on this when I heard the knocking, because in the posting, I explicitly said “Tap, Don’t Knock,” but people don’t always read instructions, and you have to be understanding of that.

My dogs were always friendly around strangers, but never anyone that I had a close relationship with, and I chalked this up to jealousy or the training I did with them where I would show them photos of everyone in my life, and then repeat the words “Threat, Threat” to them over and over again with a harsh tone until they seemed to comprehend that I never wanted to be around anybody who felt close to me in any way.

The training must not have taken, because they allowed a friend to walk right up to the side of the house, where the herb garden used to be before the rhino got loose from the zoo, and even when the knocking went from introductory to insistent to invasive, the dogs would not bark. SCOTUS even plopped himself down on the bean bag chair shaped like E.T. and took a nap. I have never been so disappointed in a canine. Not even when the Golden Retriever I hired to do security for the family reunion failed at rescuing my parents from the sandtrap.

I had only begun posting my ad requesting a good terrorizing for a week or so, and it may have been hasty of me to expect results so quickly. Despite the promise of a hearty tip, all in cash, and a well-made ham and egg sandwich, it didn’t seem like there would be any takers. I suppose if you enjoy scaring people, the spontaneity of the scare is as important as the scare itself, and while I’m still very easy to surprise, even the surprise has been planned, I can see how asking for it might take all the fun out of the event.

When I came up with the idea of soliciting a serial killer or vagrant to lurk on my property, I had a very clear vision in my head of how he or she should carry themselves. Proper hygiene, but relaxed clothing. Hair? Kempt. Facial hair? Unkempt, but stylishly so. Eye color? A soft brown. Height? Shorter than me. Food allergies? Eggs, and sometimes milk, but it really depends on what kind of milk and how the dish is prepared.

I put all of this in the ad, and then the publisher of the website informed me via bot that I had exceeded the word count, and I had to shorten my post considerably, which, I believe may have led to the passion I feel for this endeavor not coming through in my hacked up message. This was another disappointment, similar to the one I felt when hippos overtook the family reunion and I was the only survivor.

With reluctance, I moved towards the window to ask the friend if they could vamoosh, in case a lunatic or pariah did wish to startle me. I wouldn’t want them scared away by the presence of someone with a fondness for an innocent man like me.

It wasn’t until I reached the window that I realized the friend wasn’t at the glass, but that the window was actually made up of the friend. The panes had all been transformed into her face, and the knocking I heard was coming from a single pane wherein her hand had become stretched out and translucent. She resembled an abstract painting made into stained glass, and the newly risen moon put light through her the same way a prison spotlight catches a potential fugitive. Her eyes were separated--one at the top of the window, and one at the bottom. The sight was both grotesque and luminescent. She couldn’t speak, only knock. On the sill was a lock of her hair, braided just the way she liked it.

Upon seeing her, I fell back onto the floor and began to scream. I screamed for what felt like hours. The dogs howled along with me, but none came to my side. We were all frozen--the population of my house. Dogs, myself, and a friend of the glass. Nothing would move. Nothing could. I thought I heard the doorbell. It’s possible the neighbors heard the ruckus. It’s possible a maniac had shown up, finally, but would not go near the ghastly window, and chose the front door instead.

I’ve never known fear that deep in my entire life. The many sides of it--revulsion, pity, and regret. I should never have allowed her to acquaint herself with me. I should never have charmed her with my cufflinks and my anecdotes about backpacking through Iceland. I should never have encouraged her to visit the glass factory.

As I cowered on the floor, I felt a tide of gratitude pull off everything else that was welding me to the carpet I really wanted to uproot. A friend--my friend--had become a window and masqueraded herself as a stranger--my stranger--and the deception collaborated with her wish to have our relationship become more transparent, concluding with this dire instance of transformation.

I was horrified.

What a beautiful gift she had given me.

And I knew that, with my wallet still in the pants I wore yesterday tucked on the chair in my billiards room--

I could never repay her.