A Flashing of Eyes
Tomorrow
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.
No eyes jump out today, screaming ocean blue.
I trace my steps down the broken halls. In every corner, a voice sings, arching above the waves. Behind every doorway, a guitar plays, slowly, hypnotically. Memories and memories. A smile, a giggle, a wash of color.
Then static grayness. I can feel them watching me, their eyes circling my vacant body, vultures in the winter afternoon. Someone’s backpack bumps against my side. I wince, wrapping my coat tighter around my torso, hunching my shoulders, counting my steps. And then, in a moment of recklessness, I glance upwards and catch my reflection in a classroom window.
My eyes meet their mirror twins. Hollow, colorless. Then it comes, in the space between blinks:
A glint of ocean,
A flash of blue,
A piece of Skye.
And finally, I am whole.
No eyes jump out today, screaming ocean blue.
I trace my steps down the broken halls. In every corner, a voice sings, arching above the waves. Behind every doorway, a guitar plays, slowly, hypnotically. Memories and memories. A smile, a giggle, a wash of color.
Then static grayness. I can feel them watching me, their eyes circling my vacant body, vultures in the winter afternoon. Someone’s backpack bumps against my side. I wince, wrapping my coat tighter around my torso, hunching my shoulders, counting my steps. And then, in a moment of recklessness, I glance upwards and catch my reflection in a classroom window.
My eyes meet their mirror twins. Hollow, colorless. Then it comes, in the space between blinks:
A glint of ocean,
A flash of blue,
A piece of Skye.
And finally, I am whole.