(This short story is inspired by Janet Fish’s “Painted Water Glasses.”)
Ellen has a disturbing gift, unheard of and defying belief. She can glimpse something about a person’s future just by touching her finger to the rim of their drinking glass.
What she sees may be only one of multiple possible futures. But it’s hard to tell, because her visions are like fractured glass. They’re sharp, bright, and sometimes painful, and her mind quickly sweeps them away. She doesn’t see the chain of events, the cause-and-effect leading up to them. She can’t control what she sees or how far into the future. The knowledge she gains is piecemeal and ambiguous. There is, she thinks, no use to this strange gift. But she still feels compelled to use it, just in case something comes to light that she can prevent or at least prepare for.
Yesterday, she held a party at her poolside. Herself, her husband, Andy, their three adult children, and seven guests. The day was cloudless, and the patio table with its tempered glass surface seemed liquid, bathed in heat and light. The guests slid in and out of the pool, lounged with legs spread on the lawn chairs, and churned out conversation and laughter.
Ellen had met up with each of these people over the past year, on one occasion or another. She had found opportunities to lay a finger on their drinking glasses and see something of their future. She wondered if she would see the same images during the party.
She circulated and offered people refills. And they set their glasses down, mostly on the patio table. Each drinking glass was distinct. Some came from the same set, but they varied in details, like the positioning of a vine or a flower.
The first glass that Ellen picked up belonged to Ed, a middle-aged physics professor and one of Andy’s closest friends. The quick flash of the future that she saw for him was his older haggard self, hunched in an armchair. His only company was a blatting TV.
The second glass: Ed’s college-aged daughter, Mallory. She was, in the vision, maybe a decade older, and settled cross-legged on a carpet next to a stammering, giggling toddler. “Sylvia Marie,” the older Mallory was sighing, “you can’t keep eating crayons.”
Glass three: Ed’s college-aged son, Trevor. Also a decade older, at the very least. His skin pale, clammy, his clothes rumpled, one sleeve pulled up to the injection site by his elbow. No one was with him.
Ellen’s hand shook slightly as she closed it around glass number four: her husband Andy’s. Decades ago, when she had been dating him, she never glimpsed an image of their marriage. The brief images of his future had been mostly work-related: him in different offices or on a stage accepting a prize. One time, she did see him carrying a child on a beach; it turned out to be their son. Otherwise, there was very little concerning his future family life.
Now, though, a different vision exploded in her mind, the same one that had been popping up over the past few months: He was in bed, nude from the looks of it or at least topless. A blanket covered him up to his chest, and blood was sloshed on his chest, arms, and face. He was staring up at the ceiling and seeing nothing. Beside him, mostly covered in the blanket too, was another person.
After that vision, Ellen needed a short break from the drinking glasses. A couple of her guests later remarked that she was withdrawn during her party, and they wondered if there were problems at home. Maybe she and Andy weren’t quite the solid couple they seemed to be?
The next two drinking glasses Ellen chose were for the Wileys. Claire, looking roughly the same age as at the party, was shaking with emotions, mostly happy ones, over a positive pregnancy test. Dave’s glass showed him weak with terror and exhilaration at his wife’s labor. Ellen didn’t begrudge them their happiness. She wanted to see something hopeful in a vision.
The seventh glass belonged to Julie, alone now, and alone always, if the vision of her on an unvisited hospital bed was any indication. But she was also an excellent criminal defense attorney, and possibly would be until her illness ravaged her decades from now. As a long-time casual friend to Ellen, and to Andy, would she take the case?
Then came Marie’s glass, which Ellen refilled to the top with alcohol-free punch. Marie was Ed’s wife. She was Mallory’s and Trevor’s mother. She was also the second body in the blood-and-gore-soaked bed, alongside Andy. The blanket over her was riven with bullets and sodden.
Had it already begun, Ellen wondered. She glanced between her husband, Andy, and Marie. The two had barely spoken during the party, aside from the expected trivialities. Andy had spent most of the time talking with Ed. They were on the same faculty, and they always liked to talk about their work, even at a party. It made people groan affectionately.
But had it already begun, Ellen wondered. She had, so far, found nothing on her husband’s phone. But maybe he had a second phone. He definitely had an email account to which she had no access. And he was in the habit of working late, or so one assumed.
For glasses nine through eleven, Ellen cast an eye on her children, hers and Andy’s. Their oldest, Susan, currently 28, was an ancient woman in the vision. She was bent nearly double in a wheelchair that was parked beside a windowsill with a cactus on it.
The second oldest, Aimee, looking maybe slightly older than her present 26-year-old self, was screaming into a phone, “Where are you? Pick up! Come on, pick up!” Who was she trying to reach and for what reason?
Then their youngest child, Paul, also not noticeably older than his current 22-year-old self: In the vision, he was crouching on a large, flat rock by a lake – Ellen couldn’t tell which lake – while cradling a gun in his hands. He was staring at the gun.
With her heart pounding thickly in her ears, Ellen tried not to leap to any conclusion. There was no telling if he had actually used the gun, or had merely found it somewhere, or was about to drop it into the water. Those were just some of the possibilities. Maybe there was no link between the gun he was holding and the two bodies in the bed.
She couldn’t know, based on this one glimpse. And she could barely suppress the horror, the raging protest, at the possibility that he was about to turn the gun on himself.
Her own glass, glass number 12, told her nothing. She had always been blocked to herself, no visions, just the hopes and terrors evoked by what she saw in others.
She regarded her children as they were now – Susan chatting with Mallory, Aimee dangling her legs in the pool, Paul putting up with some one-sided conversation from Julie, the criminal defense attorney. And she refilled her glass with alcoholic punch, and managed some small talk here and there, in a flimsy imitation of normal.
Towards the end of the party, she retreated to the kitchen, where she leaned over the sink staring at some of the glasses and plates she had collected from the patio table. The sound of footsteps startled her into turning around.
It was only Claire, looking tentative and friendly. “Is everything OK, Ellen? I just thought you might need some help.”
Ellen pushed herself away from the sink and shook her head.
“Is something wrong?” Claire tried again.
For a short while, Ellen remained quiet. The only thing she could think to finally say was her husband’s name: “Andy.”
It hung there, as both a question and an explanation, and Claire’s face scrunched up in sympathy.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Claire said.
“What’s nothing?”
“Oh, you know.” Claire suddenly looked terrified. “Andy and… Marie at the restaurant. You probably know already. It was just lunch. They were just getting lunch.”
Ellen’s heart tumbled over, before rabbiting away. “Of course,” she heard herself say. “Yes, lunch. Remind me – which restaurant was it again?”
Claire, through some stops and starts, explained how she and her husband had decided to try a new Italian place the next town over. They happened to see Andy and Marie there, but Andy and Marie hadn’t seen them. It was a large restaurant, after all, with different alcoves.
As Claire burbled on, Ellen thought, It has begun. As for how it would end, she wondered if she had it in her to pull a trigger more than once. If not her, who? She would keep touching glasses. She would keep seeing too much or not enough.
Kilter Street Chronicles 