She’s not living. Well, she’s alive, but she can never truly live.

She was born without four of her five senses, and this crippling restraint has taken its toll. The loss of sight, smell, taste and touch.

My poor wife. Her life would never be normal. These limitations had such a strong hold on her emotions, and her body was powerless against the unrelenting difficulties. Fear overwhelmed her thoughts and dreams, and every waking moment was spent thrashing. She would never get to wake up to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, or taste its bittersweet yet satisfying flavor. She had never been able to see anything through her own eyes. Not the early sun rising from the tree tops, or the stars flying across the celestial skies by night. Her pupil was a blank canvas, which would never be painted on, like an ivory blanket draped over her lens. She couldn't see anything, not even the dark. It is as if no colors even existed in her limited and stifled knowledge. And for the rest of her life, she would never understand what it meant to feel something. I needed to find some way to help my dear wife.

I came to her one evening and presented an idea. I proposed that it might be possible to plug her optic nerve into a computer. Such a daring proposition seemed quite unorthodox, but I was willing to try anything. Her eyes would be replacing the monitor, and she would be able to see everything on my computer. I could show her the different variants of color, the parts of a human body, even pictures from around the world. The possibilities were endless, but I was unsure if her feeble mind could handle such vast knowledge. I would have to introduce things slowly to her. An overload of information could be very harmful.

After many months of testing, I finally did it. With no medical experience, I was greatly surprised with my progress. My wife could now see the things on my computer. I was able to attach a wire from my computer to her optic nerve, but I have to admit it was a very unsettling sight. Her empty, white eye was outlined in dry blood, and a wire hung down her cheeks, from inside of her socket. Getting the wire attached to her nerve was the most difficult procedure. I carefully removed her dormant eyeball and placed it down on a sanitized, metal tray. I then proceeded to stick tweezers into her socket. Reaching around very carefully, I found the optic nerve and gently pulled it towards the surface, and a bit of blood came up, as well. Once it was in sight, I attached a small insulated wire, and then returned her eye to its socket. I also plugged a monitor into the computer using a dual link monitor cable. I was then able to guide her through the Internet, showing and teaching her various material.

When she first saw my desktop, she almost passed out. My background was a vibrant screenshot of the Grand Canyon. She had never seen such color before, and her mind could not process the hues and brightness. All of my work would have been thrown out the door over this minute and foolish mistake that I had made. I could’ve killed her right then and there, but instead she somehow adapted. After a brief moment of feeling faint, she overcame the weakness and I explained to her that this was the color orange. Her mind was so much stronger than I had expected, and she quickly understood everything I instilled. Later that night, after she had gone to bed, I went down to the kitchen and bruised my own eye.

The next morning, we continued our studies, and she maintained her eager spirits. I couldn’t even keep up with the rate of information she was gaining. She soon went on to browse the Internet alone without my guidance, venturing into the unknown. At dinner, we would sit around our kitchen table and she would tell me about the wonderful knowledge she had attained. Our son, who usually kept to himself, interrupted my wife to ask me what had happened to my eye. I lied, and told him that I had tripped and hit my face on the table. He rarely ever spoke, and this occasion proved that he, in fact, was not a mute, as I had suspected.

Thomas was always a very well-behaved, young boy. He never caused any trouble, and usually kept to himself. He stood on a line between reserved and introverted. After my ex-wife abandoned me, I was left to raise Thomas alone. He was only 5 years old.

Jane was a cruel woman, selfish and hostile. Her presence had an unpleasant aura which spoiled whichever room she inhabited. Though, our marriage wasn’t always a nightmare and in the beginning, things were suitable. We got along with each other as a dog gets along with a bone, and I was the bone. For our honeymoon, we went to Hawaii and spent our days bathing in the sunlight, walking on the white shore line, where the hues of blue meet the crystal silt. Once we stepped down from these celestial islands, Jane was soon pregnant and like everything else, she alone concluded that his name would be Thomas.

Our house was as small, two-story cottage nestled in the trees beside a winding road. Few cars ever wondered this deep into the mountain side, and the tranquility of the woods was delightful. I had purchased the house only a few months before our wedding, and planned for it to be the home of our child. It wasn’t in the best condition, but after a bit of cleaning up, it was ready to move in to. The woodwork throughout the house was remarkable. The floors were hardwood oak, and the walls were covered in oak panels. From the floor to the ceiling, everything was buried in wood. We had a small sitting area towards the front of the house where Jane liked to keep her herb garden. The walls were entirely made of glass-paned windows, which provided a greenhouse atmosphere for the plants. Deeper into the house we had a very nice living room, where the fireplace was the focal piece. When we had first moved in, the fireplace was just a pile of bricks with an opening for kindle, but after moving in, I built a nice oak mantle above it.

Out of all the rooms in our Russian doll house, the most intriguing was the library. When I purchased the house, the library and all of the books were included. The previous owners told me that the room was hundreds of years old, and all of the books had remained there since the house was built.

The five years that we raised Thomas together became ever more difficult. A perfect metaphor would be a man hanging off of a cliff. The man is only holding on with one hand, five fingers. Each finger represents a year of Thomas’ life, and as the man struggles to keep his grip, he slowly lets go, one finger at a time. Until only one finger remains, and then he falls. And so she left me. She packed a small suitcase with all of her most valuable possessions, and left without a word one evening while I was sleeping. The next morning, I searched our bedroom for clues as to where she could have run off to, but there was nothing to be found.

The severity of the situation never changed Thomas, and he contained his composure. But not long after my divorce I began looking for a new wife, someone to take care of Thomas. And then one night, while walking through town, I caught a glimpse of her at an old consignment shop. She was lying in the corner, a moon beam shinning on her through the shops front glass window. I knew right away that she was perfect. Now this rash impulse might have been an escape from the reality that my wife had just left me, but looking back today, I couldn’t be any happier with my decision. Thomas, on the other hand, never did warm up to her. On one occasion, he even called her heartless.

As Thomas grew distant from me and my wife, we grew closer. And spending every day studying her behavior and learning styles only strengthened our relationship. I did love my dear son, but my wife was equally as important. I would sometimes unplug her eye and bring her outside for car rides around our town. She loved getting out of the house. On one rainy evening she wanted to go out for dinner, but I had never brought her out into a public location. I contemplated whether people would point and laugh, but in the moment, all logic was lost and I decided to risk it. I made sure to cover her exposed skin, and we both got into the car. Her skin was very sensitive. She was covered in rashes and birthmarks, and any exposure could be harmful to her bare skin. The diner up the road was my favorite place to go, and the food was always great. I ordered a hamburger with fries and a Diet Coke. She didn’t order anything. A tall, thin man entered the building, glancing in my direction and then walked over to our table.

“Can I have a word with you?” he asked in a light voice.

I stood up and followed him as he led the way to the diner’s bathroom. He reached for the doorknob and gave it a yank. The door was locked. Before he could say anything else, I blurted out a word

“What…”

He looked at me, confused. I don’t even know why I said that. I was afraid. I didn’t know who this man was, or what he wanted from me. And now I was making myself appear as a fool.

“What do you want from me?” I mumbled, completing my unfinished ramble.

“It’s about your wife,” he replied.

“My wife?” I stuttered “What does she have to this with this? She’s innocent, I swear. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Calm down, Mr. Byrd,” he said solemnly. “People in the town have seen you bring her out for car rides. Now, that kind of behavior is just not…”

I interrupted him before he could continue. “How do you know my name?”

“Everyone knows your name,” he replied.

“Are you trying to take her away from me?!” I shouted. “I’ve worked far too long and far too hard to watch my whole world get taken away!”

“Now just calm down,” he replied. “We’ve got everything under control.”

I stormed past him and ran towards the dining room. He reached for my arm to hold me back, but it was too late. She was gone! The diner was still bustling with waitresses and customers, but the only thing I noticed was the empty booth where we had just been sitting only a few moments ago.

“Where is she?!” I screamed, falling down to my knees.

“She’s gone” he replied quietly. “It’s only business.”

“Only business?” I asked, turning my head to view him. “Maybe if it was your wife, you’d understand exactly which trigger you’ve pulled!”

In one swift movement, I grabbed a knife from the nearest table, and pounced on the man. He fell to the ground as I stabbed the knife into his arm.

“Where have you taken her?!” I yelled

He cried out in pain as I repeatedly yelled, “Tell me what's going on!”

The customers began to jump from their seats and run to the exit and the employees ran to the back of the kitchen.

“Your son…” he muttered. “He’s been taken away, too.”

I took a firmer grip on the knife’s handle and began to twist it, opening up his wound. He screeched out in pain, and tried to pull me off of him. I was too heavy, and his thin arms were very weak.

“Why are you doing this?” I cried. “Where have you taken them?”

The man continued to stare at me, and I realized I wasn’t going to get any information. A large man wearing a cook’s apron charged through the kitchen doors and ran over to me. He was holding a shotgun, and he pointed it directly at my temple.

“Get off that man,” he said firmly.

“Don’t shoot,” I stuttered. “I haven’t done anything wrong. This... this man, he’s taken away my wife and son.”

The man examined me for a moment. It seemed like he was contemplating what to do next.

“Please, sir, I swear”.

“Get off of him,” he repeated in a harsh tone.

I stood up and slowly backed away, keeping my hands above my head. He followed me with his shotgun until I was about 10 feet away from him. He then bent over near the wounded man and began to speak to him. After a few brief moments, he approached me.

“I talked to that man you were attacking and he gave me an address. 546 Village Avenue. Now get out of my shop before the police arrive.”

What an odd thing to do. Why would that man give me the address after I had attacked him? Was he giving up? Was it a trap? I should have killed him. But I didn’t have time to overthink this. My body was running on pure adrenaline. I ran out of the diner and stared down the road. The parking lot was empty and I could hear the sirens from the distant police.

To be continued.