Glances Through Windows

Author’s Note:

Hey guys, it’s Michael. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my stuff!

I just wanted to give you a head start on what awaits you:

This is a complex story told backwards: each section represents an event that makes its way linearly until its end, the following section occurs before the previous event. (Exactly like Memento: a story told from end to beginning)

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What good is trying to look into someone’s soul if their eyes are closed? 

If the eyes are the windows, the mind is the soul’s essence, its meaning.

So how are you supposed to know what someone is thinking if you can’t see through the glass?

Zealus’ wife lay beside him with her eyes closed, blocking out the light of her soul. Her warm and slow breaths drifted out of her lungs and into the atmosphere of the hot and sweaty bedroom. She was sound asleep, and in her slumber, he could feel her satisfaction waning off her like steam.

She hadn’t given herself like that to him in years, and she was even perfectly dressed up for it. But all that wasn’t for him. 

Zealus had once been told—long ago—that the sad consequence of marriage was, primarily, the eradication of any kind of sensuality. Which, in his case, was true. But you don’t get married in hopes of maintaining a passionate relationship. Zealus viewed his decision to get married as a promise to a much deeper level of intimacy: a promise to stay side by side, no matter how eroded their sexual affection became. His saw this promise as a solid bond of trust, meaning absolutely no secrets from each other,

Till death do us part.

It pained him to see their bond broken, and to watch her sleeping before his gaze filled him with dread and guilt. His rage had long since passed—beginning when he first found out her secret until it slowly seeped away and was replaced with disgrace for what he had done because of it.

Through his anger of seeing her dressed up, ready for an experience that wasn’t meant for him, he accidentally gave her the best night of their lives in years. She hadn’t seen it coming; his rough and sudden lust took her completely by surprise and swept her off her feet.

And now he lay, wanting nothing more in the world than to force her eyes open and see her thoughts pour out of them, like a fountain in a park.

A betrayal of their trust was the worst possible thing that his wife could have done to him, yet in his justification, he felt a tinge of guilt, because, he too, had broken their promise.

He lifted his trembling hand and stroked her hair. His wife let out a moan and, without opening her eyes, gave him a quick smile. Zealus sighed in exhaustion, his thoughts and feelings consuming him.

What have I done to deserve this? 

What will you do if you ever find out?

—

Zealus was supposed to arrive home late, which fully explained why the first thing he saw when he walked through the door, was a pair of wide eyes full of surprise and embarrassment. His heart gave a leap and his stomach churned once more. He stood in the doorway, eying his wife and ready to throw up.

She stood before him, dressed up seductively—something he hadn’t seen in a long time—and holding a cellphone he didn’t recognize. He instinctively looked at her fingers: no ring.

He had interrupted their impending “date”, and the thought disgusted him. They stood staring at each other.

How dare she attempt this in our home.

Not a word was exchanged between them.

He dropped his briefcase and slowly walked up to her, trying to hide his boiling rage. He was feeling a strange mixture of anger and hot longing.

He grabbed her arm with force and she gasped in shock.

He felt he was looking at an exhibited work of art, a presentation, an object: its essence irritated him but the way it was presented greatly turned him on.

“You should be punished,” he whispered softly but through gritted teeth. She was an exhibit that was seen by all.

She whimpered in confusion but in it he found something unexpected: a waft of desire. Their lust stirred and reignited a long-forgotten fantasy, like bringing an old car back to life.

“Punish me, then,” she spoke into his ear.

Zealus, out of impulse, began to guide her from the arm up the stairs. She followed him willingly and they burst into the bedroom, where they had slept together countless times—but tonight, a new purpose had arisen.

Hours later she was fast asleep, oblivious of Zealus watching her rest. 

He lay beside her, his guilt and disgust returning to him; it seeped into his mind like a headache after the aspirin wears off.

—

Zealus drove slowly, scared to look out of place in any shape or form. The last thing he needed was attention. 

His severed connection with reality was slowly being tied together again and his stomach tightened as he recalled the previous events, forcing everything up from his bowels. As he steered he swallowed hard to keep it all down. He hadn’t expected the satisfaction to wear off so quickly, like a drug in his blood, and now his face grimaced in revolt and his mind swirled in disbelief.

He deserved it.

His thoughts recurred the statement over and over again to keep himself sane, refusing to acknowledge the reason for his drastic outburst.

Ever since he had found the ring in the drawer, his thoughts and actions were never coherent: they had split and drifted far from each other, pointing their objectives in opposite directions, and never coming back to middle ground. 

And ever since the call, he felt his actions no longer belonged to him. He was sitting in an unknown body, watching it do horrible things and unable to tell it to stop. 

But now, as he drove, he knew he had the wheel of his soul in his hands; he was back in control. He would do his best to plaster over his mistakes, by vowing never to reveal what he had done to his wife.

He was almost crying out of disgust when a cellphone rang, making his heart jump as he yelled in fright.

The noise was coming from the back of the car, a small vibration accompanied with a jolly melody that stopped and began once again.

Those moments of silence between rings made Zealus’ blood go cold. They were a minuscule quiet that filled the air with dread, only too be replaced again with an unbearably happy noise that contrasted the dead ambience of the slow-moving car. 

After seven deadly silences the phone went quiet for good.

Zealus had arrived at his house. He got out of the car as fast as he could and opened the boot of his car, finding a small disposable cellphone sitting alone amongst the bloody dust and dirt.

So much for covering his tracks.

He closed the boot and locked it, deciding to deal with it later.

He felt sick as he walked towards the front door of his house, and every step increased his anguish. He had no idea where his wife was, nor what she was doing.

But at least Zealus knew who she couldn’t possibly be with as he dragged his feet closer and closer.

—

There was a first time for everything. This night happened to accumulate those first times, tossing them at Zealus one by one. 

It was the first time he had argued with his wife in over a year—and the last time was a petty disagreement of what to eat for dinner. He had confronted her about her business trip but she wouldn’t say a word that incriminated her. She had covered her tracks perfectly; now all she had to do was lie, and the proof would cease to exist. 

It was the first time, in all his marriage, that he didn’t trust his wife.

The wife he knew would never lie to him, this woman who had been defending herself was a corrupted version of the person Zealus fell in love with decades ago. 

He knew where that corruption came from. That man. That mysterious man on the phone. It was all his doing.

It was the first time he had ever been so angry in all his life. 

The mysterious man wasn’t hard to find. Zealus was owed many favours. Just a couple of calls and he knew exactly who this man was: apparently his wife’s new best friend, they would meet at a nearby coffee shop; just friends, only chat.

Yeah, sure. 

It was the first time he had gone to bed on the sofa. 

The next morning Zealus told his wife he would be home late that night. It was the first time he didn’t tell her why.

It was the first time he had acted on impulse. He hadn’t meant it, truly. His emotions had taken over his mind and he couldn’t understand the consequences of his actions.

And now it was the first time he had a screaming man tied up in the back of his trunk. 

Once he made it to the abandoned construction site—with a desperate man in the boot begging for his life—he had reached his peak of disconnection with reality. 

The next thing he knew he was sitting in his car again, driving back home. This time there were no screams; no thumps—but a sick stomach and a stench of blood.

—

Anxiety and doubt made Zealus pick up the phone and dial the number with shaky fingers. His wife was off on a business trip, he hoped; but ever since he had found her ring hidden in her bedside table drawer, he began to have gnawing suspicions.

On the second ring, the front desk answered; it was a cheery lady, happy to help. She seemed to like Zealus, because when she couldn’t find his wife’s name on the register she checked for other names and found a similar one.

“There must have been some confusion,” she laughed, attempting to reassure him. Zealus did not feel reassured at all. 

His heart began to beat harder and harder, roughly thumping blood through his body and shaking the hand holding the phone. The cheery lady redirected him to the room. The ringing seemed eternal, leaving a stillness of anticipation where Zealus could hear the trembles of his body.

“Hello?” A voice finally echoed from the receiver. He paused, then suddenly hung up the phone in shock.

His breath got shaky and his head whirled in confusion.

Everything would have been fine, had that voice been the voice of his beloved wife.

——

No matter how many times she lied to her husband, she never failed to taste a brief sensation of guilt on the back of her tongue. It made her feel sick, and the only way she could stifle it down was to stop lying altogether. But Regan couldn’t do that, either.

Excitement and anxiety battled each other in her mind as she boarded the plane. She hadn’t lied to him about the business trip, but she had left out details, which—to her—was the equivalent to lying. 

Yet, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that once they were together, alone, her worries would disappear.

Her thoughts had kept her busy and, before she knew it, the plane had landed.

She tried looking for him on the disposable cellphone he had given her, but the location feature picked up nothing. Finally, she reluctantly dialled the only number registered and waiting impatiently. She was worried he wouldn’t answer; he hated it when she called.

But once Regan heard her lover’s voice through the speaker, any kind of anguish related to her husband dissipated into nothing.

Now they lay together in the hotel bed. She felt weightless, free. Her heart soared into the clouds of pleasure and her mind ceased to ponder as it submerged into the depths of glee. She remained in this state of mind as long as she could, but her train of blissful joy was suddenly interrupted by a sharp ring, puncturing and bursting her bubble of a fantasy.

Regan and her lover froze, like a pair of scared animals lacking the instinct to react. Ignorant animals get trampled, frozen souls are no different. She felt a growing worry in her stomach.

Do something.

Finally, her lover picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

After a brief pause, she heard the phone on the other end hang up. They faced each other, two souls married to different people, and he shrugged.

They relaxed and embraced. 

Her mind and heart slowly returned to their delusional states, but this time she couldn’t seem to get rid of a deep and small tinge of worry.

—

Every time her eyes set on him, her insides fluttered. 

Regan felt she had obtained a new goal, a new ambition that filled her void. But, it came with a cost: a sick feeling in the pit of her belly. It was a strange accumulation of worry and guilt that had begun ever since she had embarked on this unexpected pursuit of purpose. It grew with every lie like a tumour.

She had only gone out to have a coffee with him after work, yet she still felt the guilt troubling her once she stepped through the door of her house. Maybe it was the two phones sitting in her purse, or the ring that now slipped off with ease.

It all got easier after their first. This time he had told Regan to find him using the location on the second cellphone. He didn’t like it when she called.

She hated using the phone; she thought of it as an ugly black box that sat in her purse, waiting to be found by her husband, weighing heavily in her hand and soul.

The phone was what her tumour would look like if only she could see it: a menace that opened a door to something wonderful.

But it wasn’t always wonderful.

Regan felt she was sailing on a vast ocean on a clear day, watching in awe at the sky and the water stretched out before her. How could she consider picking only one source of blue when she was in love with both?

To her it was a balance; between her husband and lover she took the best from each of them, yet each came with their flaws.

I love my husband.

In a way, her guilt made her feel a bit better about herself: it meant she really loved him.

—

Regan didn’t know what to feel.

It was a bombing of various sensations that never made up their minds. They fluctuated in dominance and force, playing games with her mind.

She knew her husband had been waiting for her as soon as she walked through the door. She wanted to tell him, truly; but all that poured out, as soon as she opened her mouth, were lies. Once she had started, there was no turning back. She had passed the point of no return; now the boulder of betrayal roamed freely down the cliff, gaining momentum every second.

Regan couldn’t tell if he believed her. She felt vulnerable, almost naked, and there was no one to protect her. She felt judged by her own husband and began to perceive an aura of fear coming from her.

She realized she felt naked and empty because of her bare hand. In desperation, without being noticed, she ran upstairs and slipped on the ring that had been sitting in her bedside table drawer.

Now they lay in bed. She was facing the back of her husband’s head. 

She wanted to know. She wanted to look deep into his eyes, straight through the windows to his soul, and see if he knew the truth. 

She felt horrible wanting to remove every single fragment of thought that wandered in his head and see if he knew. Regan sighed in exhaustion, her anxiety and guilt consuming her.

What have I done to deserve this? 

What will you do if you ever find out?