A Flashing of Eyes
Night
The corridor is filled with eyes: green, yellow, muddy brown. Darting in the spaces between elbows and knees. I can feel them falling and flashing away, tracing the lines of grease in my hair, the smudges on my shoes. I walk. Fast. Breathing in every time my feet brush against the concrete. I risk a glance upward. Their eyes follow my head as my neck unfolds in a crooked arc. I allow my own eyes to wander with the herd, stopping to graze on pastures of people… And I see her for the first him. Her eyes jump out, screaming blue. They are fixed straight ahead never straying from the milky. My own eyes dart downward, confused, elated. I risk another glance, this time towards the horizon. There are no eyes in the sea.
*********
My room is neat. I run my hands over the crevices in the clean, white carpet until it meets the cool wood. The breeze coming in from the window is warm. It whispers of summer as I spread my school work out on the floor in perfect little piles, lining up the corners of papers. A jar of pencils sits on my desk, their points all lined up. The clean smell of dead wood fills the room. The night is quiet, just the way I like it. I turn off my light, watching the way black objects meet their black shadow sisters in the moonlight. I pull my bed sheets tight around my body, shapes melting into dim colors in the pastel darkness. Suddenly, I hear a flicker of laughter outside my window. A murmur of bare feet. A flash of blue eyes. Then it’s gone, into the waning summer night.
*********
My room is neat. I run my hands over the crevices in the clean, white carpet until it meets the cool wood. The breeze coming in from the window is warm. It whispers of summer as I spread my school work out on the floor in perfect little piles, lining up the corners of papers. A jar of pencils sits on my desk, their points all lined up. The clean smell of dead wood fills the room. The night is quiet, just the way I like it. I turn off my light, watching the way black objects meet their black shadow sisters in the moonlight. I pull my bed sheets tight around my body, shapes melting into dim colors in the pastel darkness. Suddenly, I hear a flicker of laughter outside my window. A murmur of bare feet. A flash of blue eyes. Then it’s gone, into the waning summer night.