By Foster Trecost
He fished a tissue from a hidden pocket and dabbed his forehead, then called the cops. When they arrived, he displayed his blood like a court-ordered indictment. He demanded her arrest, and she in turn demanded his. The police looked at each other, then at the therapist, who looked like he needed a therapist. No one got arrested, but feeling compelled to take official action, they wrote her a warning: Don’t throw binoculars at people.
And they weren’t pocket-sized binoculars, bearing little resemblance to those used for birdwatching in the backyard. These were military-grade, better suited for a battlefield. They struck him just above the eye. Gashed him good. A scar-leaving laceration.
Before the therapist, there was a hypnotist who spoke like a palm reader and charged like a surgeon. She didn’t throw anything, but when they went to an intimacy clinic, she threw slights and slurs one after the other. If he was going to call the cops, that’s when he should’ve done it. Instead, they booked time with a therapist who, in pursuit of clinical remedy, put binoculars in her hands. A weapon, as it turned out.
She said it wasn’t working, that she couldn’t see anything. The shrink, always quick with a comment, said it’s because she was looking at the wall. From across the room, she read that he had been awarded degrees from three universities, and was certified in just about everything. Framed papers told the story. But that’s not where she was supposed to be looking. She was supposed to look at her husband, the binoculars pulling her close, but still a safe distance away. So she looked at him. Or what was left of him. All she saw was someone who needed to pluck his eyebrows.
Then she saw something else.
A woman crouched in a corner, tears smeared across her cheeks. A hand offered itself. She hesitated, then took it and was pulled to her feet. For a moment, she stood. Steady, almost safe. Seconds later, the same hand struck again, and she fell back to the floor.
That’s what she saw.
When the binoculars left her fingers, she knew they were on a good path. They tracked toward him with baffling precision. He watched from behind a disbelieving smirk, like there was no way she’d flung a pair of military-grade binoculars at his head. She could barely believe it herself.
Once the police decided she posed only an acceptable danger to society, they let her leave. She meandered through the city, mostly adrift but with a hint of intent she couldn’t place, though she knew it was there. A café called to her, but not loudly enough. A tavern beckoned with a different voice, but she kept walking.
Then she came upon it and knew without knowing it had been her destination all along. She walked in with restored assurance and made her way to the counter. She smoothed a sheet of paper onto the worktop and asked, “Can you frame this?”
He looked at the paper, then at her. “It’s what we do. Just choose a frame.”
“You choose it. The frame doesn’t matter.”
He complied with a slim black border unlikely to detract from what it outlined. She waited while he worked and smiled when he was done, then smiled again because she had smiled.
Framed papers tell the story. Her warning hangs on the living room wall. She passes it every day, but doesn’t always look at it. She doesn’t need to. She knows it’s there.
* * *
Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Literally Stories, Fabula Argentea, and Halfway Down the Stairs. He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.