Behind the Display

Then came the notification at 2:47 a.m.: “Ring motion detected on your doorbell.” Emma would have almost missed it.

Well, maybe just another raccoon or a lost delivery driver. But she was awake, mindlessly scrolling on her phone, and her reflexes prompted her to tap the alert. The live feed showed fuzzy night-vision-green images.

Much to her surprise, her husband was apprehended on their front porch. Emma was startled and confused, because David was supposed to be at a conference in Chicago. Just three hours earlier, he had sent her a good night text from his hotel room.

Please come get me. I need hugs." On her end of the screen, there was an unsent message: "Miss you. Flight home tomorrow at six. Love you." But there he was on their porch at 2:47 a.m., frozen, peering through the camera.

Motionless. Not knocking. Simply... standing there.

Emma sat upright, perplexed. She considered using the two-way speaker button to ask him why he had come back unannounced, and what he was still doing here at all, rather than just unlocking the door. However, something held her back. The stiffness of his posture. And his eyes; even in the pixelated green light, there was something unsettling about them. It didn’t feel like they were looking at the camera but through it, as if he knew she was there on the other side of it, watching him back from the shadows of their bedroom. A shiver ran down her spine.

For thirty seconds. A minute. He remained motionless. Not a single blink. There he was in his conference clothes, briefcase at his side.

Emma’s thumb located the speaker button. "David?"

Silence. No response whatsoever." David, what are you up to? Are you alright?"

She was holding her cell phone, she saw that same crack on the screen protector when it fell a month ago. The person on the porch held up a phone showing an image of the Ring camera feed, which in turn showed an image of someone’s profile picture; it was an infinite house of screens. She pounced on her phone as the door of the bedroom creaked open and an empty, dark hallway was revealed. Confused, she looked at her phone to discover that she had received a notification for an intruder alarm triggered in her bedroom where, going by the set up of her home security array, there wasn’t even a camera. Opening the alert, she had seen her own room from an absurd angle, a confusing mirror image reflecting back and forth. A barricade appears to be blocking the background doors in the surveillance video.

Emma stared straight ahead, unable to face her. She had realized the truth of it at last. The one who had been watching her through every camera, every screen, and every digital eye she allowed into her home for the sake of convenience and security.

Her real phone—the one David was supposed to be carrying in Chicago—buzzed in her hand.

David: “I’m just so sorry. I attempted to warn you. Avoid looking at the screens. Don't gaze at—"

The communication abruptly ended.

And then came shortly another text from the same number: “Too late for her now. But perhaps not for you. Avert your eyes. Put your phone in the drawer. Unopened, let it sit until morning. “You might still have time if you just. Look. Away."

Emma stared at the message. Her gaze flicked to the image on her bedroom screen from the camera feed. The silhouette at the door was coming closer. It was visible now, clearly—wearing David’s face but distorted, disquieting, like a too-loose mask.

She knew she should look away. As directed in the note put the phone in the drawer. Make a run for it.

But somehow, she couldn’t look away. She was mesmerized by the footage from the surveillance cameras. She could almost see herself on the other side, sitting and staring at her phone. Could see the thing behind her, raising its hand at a snail’s pace toward his shoulder.

In the end, in her very own bedroom, she experienced nothing.

On film, though, she was watching those fingers hit together. Watched as she tensed up. Watched as her own face, on the feed, spun to look at the camera with that same ice blue stare she had seen out on the porch. She saw herself smiling the wrong smile. Emma's phone keys gently tapped a response: "It's ok,. Come home. I have something to show you. Once you’re there, turn towards the camera. Just watch and you’ll be fine.” The message automatically sent itself.

Outside, the people on the porch were breaking up. Tasks awaited them. Visits to make. Screens to gaze through. All it took was a glance. A time at which the observer and observed made a connection.

And amid a thousand reflections of herself on a thousand screens, Emma smiled an odd smile.

David received the buzz of her message in a Chicago hotel room, fatigued and anxious.

-The wall-mounted smart TV turned on by itself –

And the next morning, a notification pinged across hundreds of phones in the city: “Motion detected.”

People turned one by one to look at the alert.

One look had always done.