"Saiya"

With a vague feeling that something was perhaps indescribably different from before, Geoff opened the the door of the house across the street from his own and stepped inside.   In the foyer he removed his jacket.  The shadows in the darkness of the entrance around him were irritating but dull gestures. The subtly alien shapes and textures, which were really only marginally different from his own house right across the street, struck him not like the dawning of the fatal mistake that he truly had made, but instead like a persistent itch his work-tired mind was far too weary to scratch.  He hung his jacket to the wall where the hook should have been and let it fall to the floor as he moved to set his keys on the table.  Somewhat luckily, a side table stood in roughly the same place as his own table in his own house directly across the street, only this table was a few inches shorter.  His keys fell to the table with a clamor that should have surprised him, but did not.

In the half light of the bedroom he removed his clothes quietly, careful not to wake up the woman resting there quite alone who was, in any case, not his wife.  He shuffled under the blankets quietly, resting his head against a pillow that was not his.  The woman who was not his wife moved languidly on her pillow but kept her back to him resolutely.

Geoffs fatal mistake had somewhat coincidentally fallen on a night when the husband of the wife who was not his had been "roped into" spending a weekend away on business.  The wife, who was not Geoff's, had, however, suspected him, in this case quite rightly, of infidelity.  The husband of the wife who was not Geoff's was indeed at that moment in the apartment of a young woman in Arizona who's name was, also coincidentally a rare species of desert flower.  The husband of the wife who was not Geoff's had once even brought such a flower home to his wife, where it soon died, incompatible to the more temperate climate.  Though the wife who was not Geoff's was somewhat relieved that the husband of the wife who was not Geoff's had seemingly canceled his trip, she was nonetheless resolute to give him the cold shoulder.  Geoff, however, thought little of the situation.  Across the street, his own wife slept all the more peacefully for his absence.

If this were not the weekend, Geoff might have gotten up early the next morning, dressed for work, and left.  He would most likely have returned home to his own house and the matter would have ended there.  This was, however, the weekend and Geoff woke up with the sun coming in at full strength through the crack in the curtains.  The wife who was not his was now absent and he could hear a low radio and shuffling about the house.   In the morning light, Geoff might have noticed the furnishings in the room, which were much like his own but different only in style and color.  The houses on his street were more or less all the same.  As such, their dimensions encouraged a certain arrangement for the standard furnishing that all or most of the people on Geoff's street had quite separately adopted.

A child's face appeared in the doorway and looked in cautiously but did not enter.  Geoff should have noticed it was not his own child, however, with the dim light of the hallway, he was forced to make the judgement based on the child's behavior.  He suspected it was his own son who had looked in, and noticing his mother was not in the room, left Geoff to himself as was most often the case.  Geoff lay there a bit longer studying the texture of the sheets and blankets which he found to be nicer than he'd remembered, before getting out of bed and making his way down the hall to the kitchen.

The kitchen was empty save for a young boy who had assembled the essential ingredients for a bowl of cereal there on the table.  Noticing Geoff, the child left the cereal, milk, bowl and spoon on the table  and trotted away in to the next room.  Geoff finished making the bowl of cereal and sat down to eat it by the glass door that looked out into the back yard.  It wasn't the cereal, which was not the kind Geoff bought with the little cartoon rat on the box, but the light coming through the door and onto the box that perplexed him.  In truth he had been used to the diffused morning light that came through his back door facing north.  In the house directly across the street, which was not his own, the morning sun came in through the door unimpeded.  Geoff began to feel something like dread as the quality of light in the room warmed his skin.  He set the empty bowl in the sink.

Geoff carried this dread down the hallway and into the room where the radio was playing.  The woman who was not his wife lounged on the sofa facing a laptop, flanked by the two boys which were not his children.  The woman who was not his wife did not look up but greeted him "Good Morning."  The two boys at her sides, however, studied him closely clinging ever closer to their mother, and following him with their stare when Geoff made any attempt to move about the room.  The cool light from the screen's display lit her face.  The subtle differences in  her hair's color and length from his own wife's, who at that moment was across the street making breakfast for Geoff's children, and by now inspired to culinary bliss by the unquestioned absence of Geoff, did not overcome the familiarity of the cool glow of the computer screen and the transfixed glare of her almond eyes.

The woman who was not Geoff's wife was indeed still punishing the husband who was not Geoff, but her forgiveness moved closer with the deliberateness of the decorative clock that hung near her on the wall.  She had already chosen the day and hour of her forgiveness.  She smiled now, still looking down at the laptop, as Geoff turned away to walk to the bathroom, holding the forgiveness in her hand like one of the boy's plastic toys, its dimensions and texture pleasing and familiar.  She secretly relished the moment that she would hand it over to the the husband who was not Geoff.

The rest of the day passed in much the same way.  The boys who were not his children hung like frightened chaperon's to each of the woman who was not his wife's sleeves, their eyes fixed upon him and her eyes always seemingly occupied otherwise.  More than once he queried her hesitantly about small matters.  Each time, her answers came back with the bare minimum of requisite warmth.  As the evening wore on, Geoff noticed that positions of objects and furnishings in certain rooms were causing a persistent ache in the spot between his eyebrows.  He moved small objects around, and then larger ones and the tension in his brow eased more with each groan of furniture against the wood floors.  By the time bedtime arrived, he was pleasantly exhausted.

Across the street in his own house his wife once again slept soundly in his absence.  Here, however, in the house that was not his, the woman who was not his wife, knowing the day and hour of the forgiveness of the husband who was not Geoff was approaching, strengthened the potency of her punishment so that her forgiveness would have its full vintage.  When Geoff finally retired to the bedroom that was not his, he found the door locked.  That night, as he lay drifting toward sleep on the sofa, a pleasant day dream came to him as it sometimes did.  In the dream, he returned to his family after a long and eventful trip.  He told them many wonderful things about his trip, and they listened with awe.  His wife, relieved to see him after such a long hiatus, was beaming with the glow of a long desired reconciliation.  Geoff fell asleep half naked on the sofa.  The fan overhead cooling the sweat on his face.

On Sunday morning Geoff awoke and the house was empty.  A note on the kitchen table notified him that the wife who was not his would be running errands with the children all morning.  After eating, Geoff made his way to the garage and checked the lawnmower before pushing it out to the yard.  Two boys played in the yard across the street.  Geoff could feel there eyes on him has he mowed, spanning the yard from one side to the other.

The wife who was not his eventually returned to house that was directly across the street from his own where his two sons tossed a ball between each other..  The children who were not his, however did not return with the wife that was not his wife.  She confessed that she had taken them to stay at her mother's house for the night.  She questioned him as to whether that was okay.  The question was delivered with the same requisite warmth and without eye contact, but with a coyness that betrayed something else.

Geoff finished with the lawn just as clouds began to come up over the hills beyond the neighborhood.  He moved the mower in to the garage and felt it reasonable to do the same with his car. He gathered his keys from the low side table inside the door. The boys who played across the street heard the first roll of thunder, stopped tossing the ball, and resolved to go inside.  As they made their way up the driveway, the garage door opened seemingly of its own volition.  As the cool wind of the coming storm blew across the wide expanse of their street and against their ankles, they payed mute witness as the garage door came up and then down perhaps magically.  It wasn't until a flash of lighting struck somewhere in the vicinity of a mile from their home that they gave up their reverie and marched inside.

Geoff sat in his car pushing the button on the garage door opener.  From where he was sitting he could see the woman who was not his wife in the warm light of the dining room, the neighborhood gone prematurely dark from cloud cover.  Inside she poured a glass of wine and drank luxuriously as she prepared food.  Goeff could smell wafts of garlic from the open window mix with the freshly cut grass on the cooling wind as he emerged again from the car and tried the door once again.  Over his shoulder he heard the door ratcheting up across the street.

Geoff returned to the car just as the rain overtook the neighborhood.  Heavy drops battered the small trees that lined the block.  In a single motion, Geoff's car slid down the driveway, across the street, and into the waiting garage.  Entering the side door he heard laughter that broke off as the door shut behind him.  In the front room he found his family watching a television program that must have changed to a commercial break just as he entered the room.  His wife looked up to notice him, and returned her gaze to the television.  "Where's your jacket?."  She asked, unamused.

Across the street in the house that was not Geoff's, the husband of the wife that was not Geoff's was finally returning home from his trip to see the woman who was not his wife.  Closing the garage door behind him with a push of a button, he opened the door and walked into the dining room.  The moist breeze came in through the open window and convinced a lock of his wife's hair to come loose from its tie and fall across her face.  In her hand she held a glass of wine.  She seemed to be weighing it as she swung it in little circles, discerning its physical properties.  Having fully appreciated its dark potency, she offered it to her husband.