Sunglasses of Emotions

A man had bought new black sunglasses from a thrift store and brought them home. He tried them on and felt a button on the right temple of the glasses. He pressed it and saw darkness. He thought nothing of it and continued his daily activities. He looked in the fridge and saw he was out of food, so he decided to go to the grocery store.

He tucked the sunglasses into his pocket as he walked into the store. He dropped his necessities into a basket and got into a checkout line. He sneezed, his sunglasses fell out of his pocket and onto the floor. The little kid in front of him in line picked them up and put them on. He pressed the button on the left temple of the glasses and saw the other customers’ and employees’ internal emotions. His mother’s, an out-of-body figure leaned forward and angrily pointed her finger with a red face and furrowed brow. The cashier’s in front of him, leaned forward on the register, looking bored and tired. His mother ripped the sunglasses off her son’s face and handed them back to the man.

“But mommy, I saw people’s souls.”

“Alright, Timmy let’s go!” Timmy’s mother demanded as she pulled his arm.

“Thank you,” said the man as he took his glasses back.

“Kids say the craziest things sometimes,” Timmy’s mother told the cashier.

The man, Jack saw the child in shock and awe when he pressed the button on the glasses, so he tried the button for himself.

“That’ll be thirteen fifty,” said the female cashier.

Jack looked at her through the sunglasses and saw her yawning. He handed her a twenty and her emotional self fell back and went to sleep on the bag rack.

“It’ll be over soon,” Jack said as he walked away.

Jack tried out his new glasses’ ability around town as he did his other errands.

At the dry cleaners, through the sunglasses, he saw the cashier’s body moving all over the place. He could tell she was nervous or busy.

At the bank, the teller’s movements looked slowed.

He decided to go home to try something that he had been thinking about.

He walked into his apartment and into his bathroom. He took off the sunglass and looked into the mirror. It was him, a man with brown hair and dimples. He put the glasses on, pressed the

button on the side, and looked into the mirror. He saw himself and put his hand on the mirror. The glass of the mirror wobbled. Then he glared back at his returning reflection and it signaled him to move closer to the mirror. Jack leaned in and his reflection pulled him into the mirror.

His reflection told him, his name was Jackel and he lived in a world where you can see everyone’s internal emotions all the time through their expressive body movements. People are more inquisitive here and these actions are uncontrollable. Jackel and Jack walked down the street under the lit-up streetlights.

“I don’t want to live here anymore. It’s getting old. I want to meet a person and not know how their feeling. I want to make good first impressions. I sent these glasses to your universe, so someone else could experience what it’s like to to see this every day,” Jackel told Jack.

“I understand, but what do you want me to do about it?”

“Switch places with me.” Jackel got close to Jack and pulled on his shirt.

“What? I can’t–Wait, why aren’t you emoting outwardly like everyone else here?”

“I’m a scientist and I created a device to stop these outward emotions. It’s a hat connected to my brain.”

“Wouldn’t you have to wear that hat all the time in my universe?”

“No, you see, if I enter your universe, it will stop. That’s just my theory though.”

“How will you get to my universe?”

“The same way I pulled you into mine.”

“Through the mirror?”

“Yes.”

They walked back to Jackel’s house.

In the basement or the lab as Jackel called it, there was a standing mirror with wires attached to it. Jackel pulled the lever to start up his machine connected to the mirror, the portal to Jack’s world. Jackel jumped into the mirror and Jack ran in after him.

“What are you doing here? I told you I wanted to switch places,” Jackal said in shock.

“I’m here to do this.” Jack pushed Jackel back into his universe. “I didn’t agree to anything!”

Jack quickly shuffled to find a hammer in the toolbox in the closet. He smashed the mirror, so Jackel would never come back.

In Jackel’s universe, “I’ll find a way back! I’ll find a way!”

Jack used the hammer to destroy the sunglasses and it sent a shockwave throughout the multiverse.

“I’m never shopping at a thrift store again,” Jack said as he threw out the remains of the mirror and sunglasses in his trash can.