The Derry Incident, 1949
Foreword: The events depicted in this story are true. They occurred in the small town of Derry in New York State in 1949. In my work as a historian of the area, I have pieced this story together through contemporaneous diaries, police reports and newspaper articles. Some names have been changed. Little else has been touched.
Part 1 - The Gordian Knot
1
“Honey, I’m home,” said the blonde haired man wearing a suit, as he hung his hat and coat by the door.
“Oh, hi Jim,” said the brunette who was busily working at the stove as she quickly glanced behind her towards the front door.
“Come here and give me a good old bisou,” he said, pronouncing the last word with a wide grin in a barely passable French accent.
“Just a minute, dear, I’m a little busy here. Why don’t you come in here instead?” She replied while stirring the contents of a pot.
“Can’t a man get a kiss from his wife when he comes home from a long, hard day at work?” He said with a humorous tone and a charming grin. “Come here and give me a kiss, mon chéri.”
With a slight sigh, Rosie wiped her hands on her apron and headed towards the front door, where she gave him a kiss and took his bag. “What’s with all the French today, anyhow?”
“Just trying to keep you in practice, hon. I know you had to quit your job and we’re not in New York City anymore, so it’ll be hard for you to find people to speak French to, so I thought you could just speak French to me, mon petit chéri.”
“Thanks, I guess, but I don’t know how much help that’ll be,” she replied, back in the kitchen now.
Jim poured himself a drink, sat on his sofa chair in the living room opposite the kitchen and pulled up a newspaper.
“You know Jim, I was thinking…” Rosie started. “I can’t find a job as a translator here in town, right? But there’s something else I can do. See, Betty, she’s doing this thing where she organizes some parties. They call them Tupperware parties.”
“Tupperware parties?” Jim said in a derisive tone, already visibly annoyed at where this conversation was going. “Rosie, we talked about this. We don’t need you to be working, and we’re gonna get a kid soon. We can’t have you going around wasting all your time in some parties. We need you here. And besides, isn’t it great here? I’d love to be able to stay at home all day and relax.”
“Wait, will you let me finish?” She turned to face him directly and continued, in a pleading tone. “It’s this really good idea, where you can work part-time organizing these parties and selling to other local women, without even having to leave the house! I can do it while I’m pregnant, no problem. Betty did it too, and she’s doing great.”
Sighing, Jim gave Rosie an exasperated look. “We talked about this, dear, and no is no. There’s no need for you to be working now. Just relax and save your energy for motherhood, God knows you’ll need it. Just forget about it.”
Getting angrier now, she replied: “Well, I didn’t go to college for four years just to… just to make casseroles and be a mother!” As she screamed the last word, tension build from across the room. Jim finally lifted his eyes from the newspaper and gave her an angry look.
“Don’t you raise your voice at me, woman,” he said, with a menacing tone. “When I say no, it’s no, end of story.”
“Oh, so I should just stay cooped up in here all day alone just because you like it better that way?” She was shouting now, unable to contain her frustration. “I’ve got a life too, you know. Ambition, just like you. While you were off at war, I was working and doing a damn good job of it too!”
As she shouted, Jim got up from his chair and headed towards his wife in the kitchen. With one swift motion, he swung his body in a back-handed strike which knocked his wife back against the wall, crouching. “Don’t you ever backtalk me again. This is my house and I’m in charge here.”
Tears streaming down her face now, she held her throbbing, bruised cheek and replied: “Go on. Keep hitting me, like you always do. Send me to the hospital. Kill me. I don’t care. Because that’s the only way I’m not going to go to this thing tomorrow.”
Furious now, he locked eyes with his wife. There were a few tense moments of silence as Rosie braced herself for a new volley of hits. She looked at him head on, not averting her eyes from his. Suddenly, as soon as it had started, his authoritative grimace reverted back to a charming grin, as if none of this had happened. He sat back down on the sofa chair and picked up his newspaper. “All right, you can do this if you really want to. When will you be back, mon chéri?”
Her cheek still throbbing from the bruise, she got up and said, apprehensively: “The day after tomorrow. Friday. It’s best I spend the night at her place, seeing as it’ll be dark by the time the party is over.”
“Okay,” he said in a jovial tone which didn’t even sound forced. “Let me know how it goes.”
Silence prevailed until they sat down at the dinner table and Rosie served dinner. “These potatoes,” he said at last, after a couple of bites. “They’re undercooked.” He picked one up from his plate and flung it on the ground to illustrate his point. “They don’t even break when you throw them on the ground.” Shaking his head and clicking his tongue in disappointment, he said, with a smile: “Oh, Rosie, poor Rosie, mon chéri, how lucky you are to have me. What other man would tolerate all of… this?”
Knowing that she had to, she got on all fours and cleaned the potato. “It’s ma chérie,” she said, under her breath.
“What?” He said, his temper flaring up again.
“Ma chérie, not mon, because I’m a girl. Mon cheri is for men.”
In a blind rage, Jim got up, knocking down the chair in the process. He started unbuckling his belt.
"What did I tell you about talking back to me, Rosie?”
2
Jim parked his car and entered his clinic. It was a bright, clear winter morning, and he was feeling just fine. “Morning, Susan,” he said to his young blonde nurse behind the front desk, who was wearing her all-white uniform. “Looking great, as usual,” he told her with a winning smile and a quick wink.
Blushing slightly, the young woman replied: “Morning. You’re looking good yourself, Doc.”
Jim stopped for a while at the front desk, leaning on it with one elbow and throwing a charming smile at the girl. “Say, it just so happens that I’ll be free tonight. How about you drop by my place tonight and we can get to know each other… even better,” he said, gently brushing a strand of hair on the nurse’s forehead.
“Oh, I’d just love to, really,” she replied, obviously under his charm. “It’s just that, well, I’ve already got a date tonight with a… single… fellow. A girl can’t just spend all of her time falling for married men all the time, it’s not right.”
“Say no more,” he said, his charming demeanor not at all lessened by the young lady’s rejection. “Have fun.” He placed his coat in the closet and asked her: “So, who’s our ten-o-clock today?”
“Evelina Martello, she’s here for a routine checkup. She’s an important one, her. You do know who the Martellos are, right?”
“He owns that trucking company, right? Never met the guy.”
“Yeah, that trucking company and just about every truck this side of New York State. Just make sure she likes you. I’ve heard some awful bad stories about what happens to people he doesn’t like.”
“Will do,” he said, retreating into his office. “I always treat em’ right, don’t I?”
Some time later, a middle-aged woman wearing an expensive fur coat walked into the clinic. Her every article of clothing screamed of wealth, from her designer high-heeled boots right up to her chic red hat. As stylish as she was, she could not be described as conventionally beautiful due to her large Mediterranean nose and slightly pudgy face. Not to mention the large, thick-framed tortoise-shell glasses she was wearing which displayed obviously thick lenses coming out of the sides. In a slight Italian accent, she presented herself to the nurse and was led into Jim’s office.
“Mrs. Martello, take a seat please,” said the doctor. “I’m just going to ask you a few routine questions.”
After asking the standard questions about her health and getting her at ease, he asked: “How’s the husband, then? I’d really like to meet him one of these days, I hear he’s quite the guy.”
“Pray that you don’t, doctor,” the woman replied. “He’s nothing but a brute. The less you have to do with him, the better.”
“Well,” he replied, “if you say so, ma’am. How about you? How’ve you been feeling recently?”
“Same as usual. I cook, I clean, I shop and I take care of the kids… even though they’ve all left now.” Evelina gave him an expression betraying her deep boredom. “It’s men who get to have all the fun. He’s always away for business. Me? All I get to do is stay at home. But, I guess I can’t complain. I’ve got everything I desire at my fingertips.”
“Everything?” Jim’s question hung in the air for a while until he pulled up an eye chart and asked her to read it. She could read up to the 20/20 line perfectly.
“I just got these new glasses this week. They’re custom-built and hand-made from Italy. If I’m going to be stuck with this eyesight, I might as well make the most of it.”
“Indeed. They look good, and so do you,” he said to the older woman. “If you allow me saying so, Mrs.”
“No need to flatter me, darling,” she said, impassively, although she was secretly happy to be getting this attention from a handsome young doctor.
“Please, it’s nothing but my professional opinion, Mrs.,” he said, stressing the word professional. “Now, could you sit on here for a while? I need to do your physical.”
Slowly and sensually, he checked her neck and then her abdomen, focused more on caressing her bare skin than really examining her. After the abdomen, he worked his way up to her breasts as Evelina gasped softly with excitement. She didn’t say a word as he began massaging them, tacitly consenting to his touch.
After a short while, just as Evelina began panting faster, Jim abruptly stopped, turning around to take some notes on his clipboard. “No problems here. Everything is just great,” he said, emphasizing the last word. “A doctor’s job, however, is to assure the well-being not only of our patients’ bodies, but also of their minds. Which is why I’m diagnosing you with a case of depression, brought about by loneliness.” He began writing a note on his prescription pad. “Therefore, I’m going to prescribe some treatment for you, to be taken tonight, after supper.” He handed her the prescription note, with nothing but his address written on it. “I do advise you to get this prescription filled with utmost haste, as supply may be limited.”
She looked at the prescription and smiled. “Thank you, doctor. I look forward to our next appointment.”
3
Rosie parked her car in the driveway and pulled out her mirror to touch up her makeup. Her right cheek was still red and visibly bruised from the night before, not to mention her aching back, but at least that part wasn’t so visible. She applied diligent amounts of concealer to her cheek and combed her sideswept bangs over the bruise as much as she could. When she finished, she went and rang the doorbell.
“Hi, Rosie! Oh, heavens, it’s been ages. You look great, come in, come in,” Betty said, wearing a thick sweater and sniffling in between nasally-sounding words.
“Thanks, good to see you too, Betty. What happened to you, though? You’re a little under the weather, aren’t you?” Rosie spoke as she hung her coat and entered the house.
“Yeah, about that… I tried to call you before you left, but it was too late. I woke up this morning with a terrible cold. I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel the party tonight,” she said apologetically. “But please, feel free to stay the night anyway. I know you must be tired from the drive. Take a seat. Coffee? Tea?”
“Oh, that’s okay, I understand. You need some rest. I’ll have some coffee, please,” Rosie said. As the host pulled up a chair and for her friend, she noticed a red bruise on the nape of her guest’s neck, but didn’t mention it. They continued to chat idly about the common friends they knew from college while Betty prepared the coffees.
“So how are things with that old rascal, Jim? Is he still just as charming as when he swept you off your feet all those years back?” Betty asked.
Looking down into her coffee cup, Rosie said, in an off-hand manner: “Yeah, sure, Jim is fine.” Quickly changing the subject, she asked: “How about Joe? How’s the firm?”
“Oh, you know Joe, he’s working hard at it and he thinks he’s gonna be making partner soon!” She said, in a much more convincing tone than Rosie had done. “Look, Rosie, if there’s a problem between you two, you can always talk to me. I mean, I saw your neck and…”
“That? Oh, that’s nothing,” Rosie said dismissively, “Just hurt myself falling down the stairs is all. You know me, I can be such a clutz sometimes,” she said with a nervous and not-quite convincing laugh.
“Rosie,” her friend appealed to her, “we girls have to stick together. Now, I’m lucky, Joe’s a sweet man and besides, he knows I’d kill him if he ever laid a hand on me,” she laughed, and Rosie joined. “But if there’s a problem, you gotta tell me. I can help.”
Rosie began tearing up a little and said, meekly: “How do I make him stop?”
“Now, I’m not an expert, but all I know is that when you get bullied in school, the best thing for you to do is to stand up to the bully, let him know he can’t step all over you. Next time he tries to hit you, hit him first where it hurts, if you know what I mean, and then maybe he’ll understand. Bullies only bully those who let em is what my momma always told me. It’s the twentieth century, a girl’s got rights now. All you gotta do is stand up for them.”
“Right…,” Rosie said. “You’re right. Thanks, Betty.”
“Anytime, hon. Now, we still got a lot of catching up to do. Why don’t you stay here for the night and you can just leave in the morning?”
“No, I couldn’t. I wouldn’t want to impose. Besides, you’re sick,” she replied.
“Okay, well, will you at least stay with us for dinner? I can tell you all about the Tupperware parties, how does that sound?”
Smiling, Rosie agreed.
4
Jim turned on the radio and tuned it to a channel with some nice ambiance music. He was wearing one of his finest suits. Two glasses and an expensive bottle of wine were casting long shadows on the table in front of the lit fireplace. Satisfied that everything was ready, he sat down and thought about Evelina, his date for tonight. She was almost old enough to be his mother and if he had to think about it truthfully, she was kind of homely, even without those coke-bottles she wore. No, he admitted, it hadn’t been for her looks that he had sought her out. It had to be her power. Here she was, the wife of the most powerful man in town, and he was going to make her his. He had no doubt she would show up tonight. He had felt it in her rock-hard nipples earlier – she was already his.
Just as he finished this thought, he saw the headlights of her car illuminating his living room, and could see his bespectacled mistress making her way up to his door. He let her in, exuding charm and confidence enough to allay her doubts. They drank, laughed, and flirted in the living room as the bottle of wine rapidly emptied itself. At some point, Jim excused himself to go to the bathroom, and Evelina got up and examined the fireplace, over which were some photos of Jim with his wife, as well as one of him in military uniform, with a purple heart on his chest. If she had taken the time to search her feelings, she would have realized that she deeply envied this woman. Her good looks, her charming husband, her youth, everything.
Before she could finish her thought, Jim came back to the living room and surprised her with his body pressed behind hers, as her begun to softly kiss the older woman’s neck. “This is wrong,” she said, while her soft panting betrayed her true feelings. “We’re both married.”
“Yes,” he answered, in between the kisses. “So very, very wrong.” He turned her around to face him, and while looking into her eyes, started removing her glasses to kiss her. They didn’t come off, though, until she helped him, because of the head-strap which held them in place behind her head, concealed by her long, dark hair. With the glasses now off, her eyes looked much bigger and had an unfocused look. Worst of all, for Jim, was that her eyes were now crooked – they were turned outwards. He forced himself to ignore this, placing the glasses safely on the fireplace, and they started kissing passionately.
A couple of hours later, a trail of discarded clothes leading upstairs to the bedroom was all Rosie would need to see to know she had been betrayed.
5
At first, Rosie refused to believe it. He loved her, he could never do something like this. The car, the fur coat, and the feminine clothing strewn around the house soon dispelled any reasonable doubt, though.
Then, she got angry. He was a lying, cheating, aggressive bastard, and she genuinely never wanted to see him ever again. She would go sleep in a hotel tonight, file for divorce in the morning and be rid of him forever.
Comforted by this thought, she began reflecting on her relationship. The night before was nothing but a routine outburst of violence, one which had been getting more and more frequent over the years since he came back from the war. He had this way of going from passionate, charming lover to monster and back in a matter of seconds. She could see it clearly now. He convinced her he was doing it because he loved her, but now she saw that it was just his way of physically and emotionally controlling her. She had mentioned divorce half-heatedly before in one of their fights, but he told her it was never going to happen. “Till death do us part,” she recalled him saying. The threat buried within this thought filled her with fear now, where she hadn’t seen any before. If she wanted to leave, she was going to have to do it quickly and not let him get his hands on her.
As she paced around the living room and kitchen, thinking about the day before and his brutality with her, there was one thing she couldn’t understand. Although he had learned a bit of French in college, in large part just to impress her, they had never really spoken in French together, and she had definitely never called him “mon chéri.” So where did he learn it? What if there were others? He had been stationed in France, after all…
Ignoring a strong sense of dread for what she would find, she went into the basement and dug up a box labelled “Jim’s army gear.” Ruffling through it, she found old uniforms, pictures of squad mates, letters from men thanking him for such and such operation, and so on. But then, wrapped in a navy cloth, she found what she feared she would. Dozens of letters decorated with floral patterns, ribbons, even kisses, most of which were addressed to some variation of “Jim, mon chéri.” She forced herself to read each and every one through teary eyes, finding out that he had been cheating on her as early as one month after their wedding. Stationed in France for a year, he had met and courted at least five different women, each of which had stupidly fallen for his lies and his charm, just like she had. By the time she had finished the last letter, she was no longer crying.
Her anger gone now, she only felt the dull ache of her back and cheek. She finally accepted the situation. All of her love for this man who had been her husband vanished somewhere in between reading the letters, where she realized everything he had ever said to her was just a dirty, vacuous lie. She placed the box back into its place and thought about her next move. Thinking about the situation calmly now, she realized that he would never sign a divorce paper – he was too prideful. He was also a great charmer, and he’d make sure to turn everyone against her if she tried. She knew she couldn’t match him there. If she ran, though, she would have nowhere to go, no money and on the run, hiding from a monster of a man who would surely try and find her. And besides, she thought, why should she be the one to live her life in fear and squalor when it was all his fault? “I’d kill him if he ever laid a hand on me,” she remembered her friend saying in a joking tone. Perhaps it was true that truth is often said in jest. Yes, she knew what she had to do to be free. After thinking it over for a few seconds, she grabbed some duct tape from the shelf nearby and got to work.
6
She sat in her soon-to-be late husband’s car in the garage and went through the checklist one more time. Duct tape sealing all ventilation ducts except for the one in the master bedroom? Check. Hose secured from the car’s exhaust to the ventilation duct in the garage? Check. Towel placed under the door to the bedroom? Check. Good, she thought, all that was left to do was to turn on the car and say good riddance. She barely thought about the nameless mistress she was going to be killing in the process, but somehow, it didn’t bother her too much. All it meant was just a little extra cleanup.
The car engine started smoothly, gas escaping upwards towards the bedroom where Jim and Evelina were peacefully dozing off after sex. She gently pressed on the accelerator while in neutral gear to hasten the process. She closed her eyes while a sappy love song on the radio.
7
Reaper’s gorge. True to its name, it had taken the lives of many a motorist over the years if the memorial plaques littering the area were to be believed. Driving along it slowly under the light of the full moon, Rosie understood perfectly why. It was a dangerous stretch of steep road with a sharp curve to the left overlooking a steep cliff. If one didn’t heed the signs and slow down, it was easy to miss and drive straight through the thin railing to a certain death, thirty feet below. In fact, one such section of railing was already gone due to a recent accident. It was the perfect place to get rid of the woman.
Stopping the car in front of the gap in the railing, she wrestled with the woman’s limp, blueish body to get it in the driver’s seat. This reminded her of her ordeal which ended less than fifteen minutes ago in which she struggled to get the middle-aged lady dressed. Who knew it was so hard to dress a corpse. She got it done though, and here sat a very well dressed woman in her fur coat and red hat.
She took one last look around her to make sure no one was around and prepared to push the doomed woman’s car off the cliff. With the engine still ignited, the car rolled off of the cliff. The echo from the crash allowed Rosie to breathe a sigh of relief. Smiling thinly, she knew it was over now. All that was left to do was to walk a couple of miles home and call 911. She was free.
Down in the gorge lay the mangled body of the highly nearsighted wife of the town’s most powerful mafia leader. Her thick glasses, which even her children had rarely seen her without, were nowhere to be found.
8
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. McAllister,” said the young cop with short, curly hair. “Not even a month after you come here and now… this… has to happen. I can’t imagine how you must feel.”
Crying on the sofa, Rosie simply nodded slowly and sobbed some more, wiping her cheeks with a tissue offered to her by the police officer. “You know,” he continued. “I know what it’s like losing your wife… I mean, losing your husband… your partner, is what I’m trying to say.” He was obviously nervous. “I mean, because last year I lost my wife too.”
Nodding slowly, she touched his hand in a comforting gesture. “Polio. Killed her and my unborn son… or daughter, I guess.” He paused. “So, if you need any help, let me know.” He smiled painfully.
As she thanked him, an older cop with salt-and-pepper beard came downstairs into the living room. Whereas the younger one was all sympathy and nerves, the older one was dispassionately taking notes of everything he saw in his notepad. Sitting down in front of Rosie, he said: “So, Mrs. McAllister, would you mind walking me through what happened when you got home?”
She went on to describe how she saw smoke all over the house, and when the smoke had cleared, she made her way upstairs to find her husband lifeless in bed. She made sure to convey her grief to the two men. The younger cop seemed almost moved to tears, while the bearded one scribbled notes furiously.
“And where were you tonight? Before you came here?”
“I was at my friend Betty’s house, in Chesterfield. I was supposed to stay the night there, but she was sick, so I came home early to find… this,” she said, sobbing a little at the last word. She was thankful for the theatre she had done in college at this point.
“There, there,” said the younger cop. “Neil, I think we shouldn’t be keeping her much longer. It’s obvious that what happened here was a tragedy. The man just left his car engine on and went to bed. These things happen, I guess.”
“Mike,” the older cop said, getting up. “Could I have a word with you over here, please? In private?” Away from the woman, he said: “We’ve got a death here, a possible homicide even. I don’t care how green you are, that’s something you as a cop should take seriously. If you’re tired and wanna go home, be my guest. But me and that lady there, we’ve gonna be having a late night.”
“All right, all right, no need for that, sarge. I’ll stay.” They made their way back to the living room, where Neil began looking at the pictures on the fireplace.
“Purple heart, huh?” Neil said. “I myself served in that first Great War. Never did get one of those, though. Your husband must have been a brave man, ma’am.”
“Yeah, he was quite the soldier, they tell me,” she replied. This thought made her more aware of the lingering pain on her back, out of sight completely beneath her turtle-neck sweater which had been carefully chosen to avoid any questions.
Meanwhile, Mike’s eye caught sight of something else on the fireplace. It was one of the most beautiful pairs of glasses he had ever seen. It was a brown, tortoise-shell thick-rimmed pair of glasses with some of the thickest lenses he had ever seen outside of those worn by his late wife. “Whose glasses are these, Mrs. McAllister?”
Rosie’s heart skipped a beat, and a cold sweat came over her. She had thought about everything, cleaned everything, thrown away the duct tape, tidied up the clothes… hell, she even made sure to keep the car engine running while she left the house. But she somehow missed this damn pair of glasses which must have belonged to the middle-aged lady. Like a deer in the headlights, she stared at the glasses Mike had carefully picked up with frozen horror.
“Oh!” she said, finally, pretending to squint at them. “Those are mine, thanks.” She got up and took the glasses from his hands, placing them on her face as she clumsily attached the strap behind her tied hair. Immediately, she was struck by how little she could see. Not only did they turn everything into a deep, foggy blur, but she saw everything in double. Four police officers were now standing in front of her instead of two. Thinking fast, she smiled and said: “Ah, that’s better. I’m blind as a bat without these things,” reciting a cliché she had often heard from people with glasses. Quickly, she headed back to the sofa chair feeling that she could easily lose balance standing up, on the count of not knowing where her feet were.
She was not the only one whose heart was beating faster. When she put the glasses on, Mike also had to rush to sit down, as he had never seen such a beautiful sight before in his life. Already he thought that Rosie might have been one of the most attractive women he had ever met, but seeing her with these thick-rimmed glasses sitting on her small, cute nose, he noticed that they perfectly complemented her brown sideswept bangs and shoulder-length ponytail. She was the girl of his dreams, plain and simple – it was a little too much for him. Not knowing quite what to say, he nervously blurted out: “They’re strong. I mean, they look strong. How did you… Why did you… Why weren’t you wearing them before?”
“I didn’t want to get them all dirty with the tears,” she lied. “Also, Jim doesn’t like seeing me wear them so I only wear them when I have to. They make me look a little dim.”
“No, no, no, not at all,” Mike said, while Neil was diligently taking notes on his pad. “I mean, you look great – you look good, either way.”
Rolling his eyes, Neil told Mike: “All right, one last tour of the house and we’ll be on our way. Go take a look at the body upstairs, will ya, Mike? And try not to puke all over the evidence this time, rookie.”
9
She woke up to a splitting headache in the guest bedroom. The alarm clock said 10:22. She’d slept in. Half-awake, she brushed her teeth and showered, remembering the events of the day before. During her long shower, she found that she felt no remorse, only relief at the thought of her husband’s death. “He’s finally gone. I can live my life again.” She went through all possible loose ends and was satisfied that she hadn’t made any mistake.
Until she remembered the glasses.
Those damn glasses. They had almost ruined her perfect crime. Luckily, she had been able to convince the cops that they were hers. But what now? She had taken the glasses off immediately after the cops left, unable to stand another second of the intense, mind-numbing blur that they caused for her. She couldn’t keep wearing them just to hide the evidence. She’d be no better than a blind woman.
She got dressed and fetched the glasses, examining them in front of the mirror. The thick glass lenses made them pretty heavy, which was probably why the previous owner had decided to use a head-strap. The frames themselves looked almost brand new and expensive, just like everything else the lady owned. The lenses, though, stuck out around a quarter of an inch from the sides and looked like thick bowls filled with concentric rings. She tried them on again, looking at herself in the mirror over the top of the frame, avoiding looking through the lenses. She had to admit that they suited her face well. At least that part of the story would check out. Looking more closely, she saw that they seemed to distort her face and bring the edge of her cheeks inwards, something she hadn’t noticed when she looked at other people’s glasses. Come to think of it, she had never really noticed anything about other people’s glasses.
Taking them off, she ran through the possible scenarios in her head. If she didn’t wear them from now on in the next few days, the two cops would surely suspect that something was wrong and might be able to find the link between her husband and his mistress’ “accidental” death. If she did wear them, though, she would be impaired to the point of not functioning. Forget about driving, let alone seeing anyone’s face, reading, or even avoiding obstacles in public. She considered removing the lenses or replacing them with clear lenses and wear the frame, but she had a feeling that the cops would definitely notice. The rings, the distortion, the thickness… it was too obvious if they suddenly vanished. In short, there was no solution. She was done either way. Dread filled her as she imagined herself on Death Row, waiting for the electric chair.
She lied down on the bed and thought hard. What else did she know about glasses? Her parents had never worn them, and she was an only child. A few of her friends and colleagues over the years had worn them, but she hadn’t even been curious enough to ever ask to try them on or anything. She realized she didn’t even know the first thing about them or how they worked.
Who else did she know who wore glasses? She continued to scour her memory. She remembered her aunt, who had passed away ages ago, when she was still very young. She recalled trying her glasses on one occasion. She must have been around six. Her aunt needed to clean her glasses, so she asked Rosie to hold onto them while she fetched a cloth from her purse. Naturally, Rosie was curious so she tried them on and walked around for a while with them on. That’s when she remembered what her aunt told her: “Give those back to me, Rosie. If you keep them on too long, you’ll ruin your eyes and you’ll need to wear them all the time, too, just like me.” Sufficiently scared, she took them off and handed them back to her aunt, not wanting to have to wear them. “Maybe that could work for these…?” she thought, hopefully.
Putting the glasses back on again, she was determined to actually try and look through them this time. She tightened the head-strap because it felt a little loose for her head and began inspecting herself in the mirror once she got them to fit snugly on her head. Or rather, she began inspecting “herselves,” as she saw nothing but two roughly person-shaped blobs in the mirror. Knowing she should be seeing only one shape, she forced herself to focus and merge the two blobs together. They got closer and closer with every try, until she was finally able to fuse them into one, feeling her eyes being pulled inwards in the process. As soon as she relaxed her eyes, however, the image reverted back to two shapes, and she had to start over. After a few tries, she was managing to hold the image together for almost half a minute at a time, but she developed a huge headache in the process.
Taking the glasses off, she noticed she was seeing double even without them now. This feeling subsided after a minute or so. “It’s working,” she thought. “Maybe I just have to keep them on longer and my eyes will just change on their own, for good.”
With newfound hope and determination, she swallowed a couple of aspirins and wrapped the glasses back around her head. She was able to focus longer and longer on her reflection, powering through the discomfort and the pulling sensation in her eyes. Eventually, she got bored with the mirror and decided to go pick up the morning newspaper and continue her exercises with that. “My story must be in there already,” she thought. “Let’s try and find it.”
Several painful and aspirin medicated hours later, she finally found it through sheer effort and holding the newspaper as far away as possible. In tiny, barely legible letters, she made out the words: “Local Doctor Dies Tragically in Household Accident.” A smile came across her lips. Maybe she’d be free after all.
End of Part 1
Statistics: Posted by Zakalwe — Fri Dec 11, 2015 8:04 pm