Seeker

“Leonardo da Vinci once said: ‘The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination awake’. What a great artist he once was,” Mrs. Mayfield says. She dances around the room, cheerfully clapping her hands together, a bright grin on her face. “One of his post famous paintings --and my favourites-- was the Mona Lisa. He started this wonderful work of art in 1503, and continued on for four years…”
I zoned out. Mrs. Mayfield usually is the only teacher who can keep me interested in what she’s talking about. She’s usually talking about something interesting to me, something I can relate to or something that I can do to improve my artwork and keep my hands busy. But today, that wasn’t the case. She was babbling on about famous artists and the artworks they had completed in their time. She held up photographs of these paintings and other artworks for the class to see, so enthused about them. But nobody really cared. The class was zoned out.
I was happily drawing in my sketchbook. This boy in my class, this Mr. Holston figure, wasn’t in class today. Second day of school and he was already absent. Maybe he had already dropped the class for a spare period. Maybe he had taken another class. Maybe I was going to be alone after all.
“…The quote I said near the beginning of class,” she says, pulling me away from my thoughts. “Is a quote I find myself using more and more lately. “‘The eye sees a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination awake’,” she repeats, leaning against her desk at the front of the room. “I want you all to sketch out a scene from one of your dreams, and don’t you dare tell me you’ve never dreamt before because I know you all have! A grade nine tried that with me a few years back, and I laughed in his face!”
Mrs. Mayfield sits back in her chair behind her desk. “I want you to sketch it out today and handed in tomorrow.”
Dreams. My dreams? She wants to see the things inside my head? She’s insane. She does not want to see the things in here. They’re scary and dark. She’d think I’m depressed or even crazy, and send me away to get help. She doesn’t want to see my dreams, she wants to see my nightmares.
“Mr. Holston, I could have sworn I told you not to show up late for my class,” Mrs. Mayfield’s voice rungs in my ear. My stomach drops and my hope vanishes. He’s back.
No words are exchanged between my teacher and the student. He just walks past the other students, straight to the back of the room, and takes a seat in the chair in front of me.
I press my pencil to the sheet, ignoring every living person in this room.



“The school called,” Danny mumbles, flipping through envelops on the kitchen counter, tossing most of them aside. “They said you weren’t in class yesterday.”
“I totally was,” I exclaim, drumming my fingers on the counter. “I just left half way through…”
“Kass… you know you can’t skip class,” Danny said in a motherly way.
“You said I could leave if I was sick or if there were too many eyes. You said if I get overwhelmed, I have permission to leave.”
“And where you? Where you even the slightest bit sick yesterday? Overwhelmed?” she asks, glaring at me through those heavily tinted sunglasses.
I bite my lip, looking away from her. “Exactly. You need to attend class. You need to get an education so you can-”
“So I can what? Get a job?” I interrupt her, raising my voice. “Am I going to become a doctor? A lawyer? Am I going to help people in life? Go far?”
“Kassidy-”
“No, I’m not. I can’t.”
“Yes you can!” she tries to reason with me, but there was absolutely no use. In my mind, I was helpless. A runaway train destined for failure. “You can become those things, but you have to go to school.”
I laugh humourlessly, shaking my head. “Way to beat around the bush.”
“Oh come on, Kass, there’s nothing holding you back here!”
I stare at her in complete disbelief. Did she really have no clue?
“So looking into someone’s eyes and seeing every single detail of their death isn’t a problem? It isn’t a setback? It’s perfectly normal?”
She opens her mouth to yell back at me, but shuts it. She had nothing to say.
“Exactly,” I mumble, picking up my side bag and throwing it over my shoulder. “I’m going to my room.”



I sit on my bed, the covers tucked underneath my and my pillows behind my back, resting against the wall. My bag sits on the floor beside me, it’s contents spilling out beside it. My sketchbook sat beside me, filled to the very last page. I had no more room to draw.
I was bored and I was angry. Angry with myself and angry with Danny. Angry at the world, angry at the people and their selfish eyes, pulling my towards them. Usually when I feel like this, overwhelmed and heated, I pull out a pencil and my sketchbook and draw away. My anger fades away with the lead on the paper and soon I’m not angry anymore. Soon I’m calm and my head is clear of all negative thoughts and all the people.
This isn’t the case now. Now I’m being pushed to my limit. Now, the voices won’t leave me alone.
Now, I’m sitting on my bed, twiddling a razor between my fingers.
No.
I sigh, tossing it on the small table beside my bed. I wouldn’t do it again.
I’ve only done it a couple times, and only when things got really bad. I didn’t do it to feel numb or to make the pain go away, I did it so I could actually feel pain. So I could feel my own pain instead of everybody else’s… instead of all the people in my head. It grounded me. Made me grasp a hold of myself and let go of everyone else.
But it doesn’t last. The pain goes away and the people come back, and eventually, all I’m left with is a nasty scar on my body. It’s hardly worth it.
I swore I wouldn’t do it again, and I intend on keeping that.
So instead, I search my room for a piece of paper. Something I could get my hands on that could possible be drawn on. I go through my closet, through the countless piles of old sketchbooks and journals. I used to write out what I was feeling in journals, sometimes it would help, but it always felt silly. It was like I was talking to myself, only with words on a paper instead of out loud.
Art has always been the thing for me. It’s always been the most effective way to keep my head screwed on.
Eventually, after searching through sketchbook upon sketchbook, I find one with a couple extra pages. It’s an old one, back from when I was little. I can tell, because the skill level on these pictures compared to the ones I have today is completely different. Back then it was a lame attempt.
The paper in the book isn’t the best quality, definitely not what I’m used to, but it would have to do. I would have to deal without my good sketchbooks until Danny bought me a new one.
There was no more room to draw in my normal books today, I had used up all the pages in art class drawing out my dreams. I had to hold back. I couldn’t show her everything inside my head, everything that haunts me while my eyes are closed. So I showed her something that made me happy. One of the very few, very secretive things I hold inside my head.
I showed her my mom.
In the drawing it’s a woman. She looks like me, only much older than me. She has wrinkles around her eyes and on her forehead, sticking out like a shadow on a sunlit landscape. Her hair is dark black, just like mine, only hers was shorter, cut right to her ears.
When I first saw her, she was in my dream. I knew instantly who she was. I knew without even looking at her that my mother was present in my head. It was her. She looked unhappy. I know that. When I looked at her, when I saw her face, I knew she was so unhappy. She wasn’t smiling at all. She was frowning, almost cringing away. And her eyes were rimmed with darkness, darkness that only comes from lack of sleep.
Her eyes. They threw me off instantly. Her eyes scared me. Her eyes weren’t white. They weren’t blurred out or blank. They were grey. Like mine.
She looked exactly like me.
I’ve never seen this woman in my life. In my head, yes, but out in the real world it’s like she doesn’t even exist. She isn’t in the news or in books or movies. She isn’t on the internet or on and public documents. She doesn’t exist.
Nobody knows I’ve seen her. Danny doesn’t know. I haven’t gained enough courage to tell her about my real mother. Danny has a loath for my mother. She thinks it’s disgusting that a mother had left her child alone in the world, that she couldn’t care less about what happened to such a small being. She thinks the woman is heartless.
I think she did the right thing. If my mother was like me, if she could see what I can see, then she tried to give me a better life. She tried to give me a normal life, away from this gift.
Or at least that’s what I’d like to think.
I sigh, tossing my sketchbook on the floor as I try to bite back my tears. I don’t want to cry, not over this woman who left me. She abandoned me. I need to remember that. She didn’t try to give me a better life, she wasn’t trying to keep these powers away from me, she wasn’t trying to make me normal. She abandoned me. She didn’t want a child with these powers. She didn’t want a child who would see how people will die.
She didn’t want me.
I wipe my eyes, breathing deeply. Danny will be up any moment calling me for dinner. I don’t want my eyes to be puffy when she sees me. I don’t want to have to explain this to her.
I get up off my bed and run across the hallway to the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind me. I turn on the water, splashing my face with the piercing cold water. I breathe, wiping away the water with the soft towel, then I look in the mirror.
Grey eyes. That’s all I see. Black pupils surrounded in grey. Dull, colourless grey.
I can see my own eyes. I can see my pupils and the iris surrounding it. I can see everything in my eyes as everyone else can. “They’re normal looking eyes,” Danny had told me once. Normal looking eyes, except for what’s hiding behind them.
I don’t see anything when I look into my eyes. I can’t see my death, I can’t see my future, I can’t see anything. I just see my own reflection. I don’t know why this is, and sometimes I whish I knew. Sometimes I wish I could see when I’ll die, when I’ll escape this world.
Right now the only thing holding me back is Danny.
I turn off the tap, tossing the towel in the laundry bin beside the counter. Danny comes up a few moments later, letting me know dinner is ready.
I come out of the bathroom and see her standing there, a plastic bag hanging in her hands.
“I got you something today,” she says, holding the bag out to me. “I had a feeling you’d be needing a new one soon.”
I open the bag to see a black sketchbook, hundreds of clear, never-been-touched white, good-quality paper, just waiting for my pencils to touch and pictures to explode.
“Thanks, Danny,” I smile, looking up at her, at the shades covering her eyes. “For everything.”
She smiles, turning around towards the stairs. “Come for dinner, then get your homework done. You’re still going to school tomorrow, whether you like it of now.”
I chuckle, shaking my head as I make my way downstairs.