Strange Occurrences, As Witnessed Through Broken Glass (Prior To Its Actual Breaking)

What I did today was, I must admit, very silly of me. I am not, essentially, a silly man, and so it is safe to say that, this particular evening, I was behaving highly uncharacteristic. I do not know why it happened, why I was compelled to do what I did.

I was returning home after a perfectly ordinary day at work � that is to say, mind-numbingly monotonous, mercilessly mundane and immensely imperfect. Teaching English language to a group of unseemly young university �students� is not fun. I use the term �students� in quotation marks because it is my firm belief that when one is a student one is technically expected to study � and the children I teach do no such thing.

I exited my car, and sauntered up my driveway. In doing so, I espied a shadow, standing ominously behind the drawn curtain of my living-room window. It was only there for a second, and then was gone.

My wife should have been at work, and the maid had asked to take the day off. So as you can see, my suspicions were not entirely unjustifiable. That shadow had no right to be present at my house. It was also a very big shadow.

After it disappeared, I stood still for a while, worriedly wringing my hands as I tried to decide what course of action to take. My worries were amplified by a sudden banging noise, which emanated from my living room. It was remarkably loud. It was followed various scraping and shuffling sounds.

Now I was sure that I had not imagined it; the enigmatic shadow was the author of that disturbing din. The living room was now emitting a series of chaotic-sounding noises, as if someone was struggling to do something, without success. And then there was a scream.

No, I retract that statement. It was not so much a scream as a yelp, a sound of displeasure that was not intentionally uttered. And the voice that uttered it was unmistakably recognizable as that of someone who I knew very well. My wife.

I panicked.

Muttering gibberish to myself, I ran to the living room window, and peered inside. In the shocked and frightened state that I was, it took me several seconds to realise that the reason I had so much trouble seeing what was inside was the that the thick curtains were drawn, allowing me only a few shadowy silhouettes to serve as guidance as to the enigmatic events proceeding within. I saw the frail figure of my wife bent down, as if in unbearable agony. She softly groaned and grunted; clearly she was struggling to stay standing. Hearing her pain, I swiftly decided upon my course of action. Someone was inside the house with her, a thief perhaps, and he was hurting her. As her loyal, loving husband, it was my duty to stop him. So I braced myself for some pain, and took several steps backwards.

Here, I must assure you that I knew perfectly well what I was about to attempt to do. I was fully aware that diving through a window is no joke. I was in no way influenced by those mindless action movies that one sees frequently on the television. I heavily stress the fact that my actions were in no way performed in order to fill some romantic desire within me to enter a room sideways through a window, land amongst the softly tinkling broken glass, and quickly erect myself, surprising some villain inside said room while disturbing his dastardly deeds.

I took what I guessed was a sufficient run up, and then jumped head first into my living room window.

I suppose that was my first error. When jumping head first into a window, the first part of the body to make contact with that window is, naturally, the head. And as we are now living in the twenty-first century, windows are built to withstand the harsh conditions of modern life, such as violent weather, stray baseballs, and the heads of men desperately vying to rescue their wives from unknown dangers. In short, it hurt. Excruciatingly. The pain came to me in a sufficient dosage so as to �knock me out�, as I believe the phrase is used.

My now unconscious body rapidly sailed through the newly made entrance to my living room, and landed with a resounding crack, which reverberated throughout the household, serving as a second announcement of my arrival, for anyone who had missed the actual breaking of the window. I learned the details of these sonorous sounds from my wife.

A beautiful young woman, I am sure I have already described my wife as being �frail�. Her fine-looking frame lacked the muscle owned by most. It is my belief that this is the cause of much insecurity to her, as I am fully convinced that she overreacted that day. Fearing that the figure which had flown through the window (i.e. myself) had evil intentions; she reached for a nearby brass candelabra, and fiercely flung it at the man who she assumed was an assailant. It approached my left leg, and landed with yet another resounding crack.

I now lie on my bed, gradually recovering from the injuries inflicted upon my body on this day. My right shoulder, the one I landed on, contains a broken bone; the name of which is too long to remember for anyone other than those in the medical profession. It was also the victim of multiple lacerations, inflicted by the glass which did not tinkle on the floor after shattering, but rather opted to lie still and cushion my fall. On my head there has risen a sizeable hill, large enough I am sure to merit a name of its own. This seems to be the least grave of my wounds. My left knee is fractured, thus not permitting me to walk.

Perhaps it is time to address the question of what actually occurred. It seems that my spouse was relieved from her duties at the hospital earlier than usual. Coming home with more time to spare than usual, she elected to watch a programme on the television. I am still unable to comprehend how this came to pass, but she somehow managed to topple the tall stand upon which our ancient television set rested. The television stand, with the old box no longer on but rather beside it, fell to the ground. This was the first set of noises I heard. This was followed by the sound of the light aluminium stand being righted, and subsequently came the auditory discharges caused by my wife�s attempts to restore the television set. It had not broken; it was nothing like the ultra-fragile devices one might find in production today. The yelp I had heard was the sound made by a woman who had just broken a nail.

While I admit that a broken nail may be fairly painful to a woman like my wife, I somehow doubt that it was sufficient cause for a dive through a window to her rescue, thus inflicting great injury on a perfectly innocent window pane, not to mention a wholly blameless English professor.

BACK