Spiderweb -Part 2.

The annoying horn sounded again four hours later; the workday had come to an end. Hugo gathered his belongings and stood behind a long line of dirty and exhausted people. He boarded one of the company buses and sat in the back by a window. He always left his backpack on the floor by his feet, but this time, he held it on his lap and protected it with both hands as if he were carrying something dangerous. A thread of nervousness ran through his body, even though there was no reason for him to be nervous. But several signs throughout the area pointed out, "PROHIBITED TO APPROPRIATE TOOLS OR MATERIALS FROM WORK." And Hugo remembered reading it in his employment contract.

"A spider is not company property," he told himself, trying to relax, and closed his eyes.

He jolted awake about fifteen minutes later when the man sitting next to him shook his shoulder. Hugo smiled in gratitude, immediately feeling inside his backpack; the lid was still in place.

As the brakes hissed, Hugo was the only one to disembark at the first stop. He had lived his entire married life in the outskirts of the city, or at least what used to be the outskirts of the city.

Upon arriving home, Hugo didn't look at it at all; he knew it by heart; peeling walls in need of a fresh coat of paint, a rusty metal door, and swollen wooden windows. No one needed to tell him that it looked like an old house (and it was). Instead, he preferred to gaze at the house of his neighbors of a few months.

"They don't know what privacy is," he declared, as he did every day when he returned from work.

The two-story house was a cluster of squares; like all those designed by modern architects. It resembled a glass cube; it had more windows and glass than square meters of concrete. Some of the walls were painted white, and others in a metallic gray. Parked outside the garage was a brand-new, red FORD sports car, and Hugo knew there was a black, convertible MERCEDES inside. His well-off neighbors (the only ones so far) were part of electronics companies that paid their employees large sums of money. The husband, a thin and somewhat effeminate young man (Hugo believed due to his way of dressing), worked for something called GOOGLE; whatever that was.

In reality, that was about all he knew about them. They exchanged greetings, but they were always too busy with their cell phones glued to their ears, as if their lives depended on it, to engage in friendly conversation. He also knew they had a young daughter...

Hugo couldn't continue his thoughts. At that moment, a slim woman with short hair emerged from the house, still talking on her cell phone; his neighbor. She was wearing a white shirt and a black skirt. An expensive red handbag hung from her shoulder, and over it, a black blazer could be seen. As soon as she came into his field of vision, she raised her hand in a brief wave to greet him while never stopping her conversation. Hugo returned the greeting with a nod. He had no doubt that this woman was the one who called the shots in the relationship, and Hugo was a voice of experience on that matter.

He sighed and prepared to enter his home. There was something that concerned him considerably more than his relationship with his neighbor.

His own wife.