Status: There will be a total of four chapters.
The Left Eye
Laughing
My lashes batted the dust and dirt off of the lids of my eyes. I felt a thin film of grime and age accumulate over my pupils. The room was a devilish pitch black. Opening my eyes would do no good. There was barely a difference in whether or not I left them shut. I couldn't feel anything. My limbs grew numb and lifeless as I lied there. Looking around would prove to be futile. The room was blank. Empty. No light. I could still remember tasting the oxygen's dense, salty grit.
I kept losing track of how long I had been in there. It was for at least six hours. There was a leak somewhere in the room, and small droplets of water plummeted into a steel bucket and made a distinct dripping noise. I counted thirty minutes between each drop. And I'm pretty sure I heard the twelfth drop just now. Or was it thirteen. Maybe it was eleven, and I accidentally counted over. Either way, it was safe to estimate it at around six hours. But the air was getting coarse and smelt of raunchy overuse. Like I was breathing in the same filtered air time after time. A headache. Growing within the temples of my skull. Not anything too severe, but it was sharp. Throbbing. Like my cerebellum had its very own heartbeat. I could almost hear the brainstem roots popping.
Hour seven. Still laying limp as a rag doll on the table. Moving around on it, it was hard to suggest what exactly it was made out of. Maybe a dense granite or sediment rock. Maybe a fine-grained and sanded basswood or cedar plank. I felt a coarse stone scraping against my lower back and draw a thin layer of blood and skin from me. Unexpected. It took me by great surprise, as I jerked forward away from the pain. I gritted my teeth. My eyes pulsated, and there was a dull hammering on my chest. Still, I tried not to panic. It was always my last resort, and I wasn't about to go insane at any given point.
It's been about eight hours in total now. For some reason, I didn't feel the need to panic. Indifferent as to whether or not it was some type of dream. Maybe I took too much allergy medicine the night before. The headache started getting worse, and the throbbing more prominent than before. Like something was inside of my brain, and I practically felt it peeking out from its soft, fleshy frame. Even the air itself was downright nauseating to even so much as breathe in. It wasn't even filtered or anything. Just cold, acrid, factory-polluted fumes. There were times I would feel my throat clog. It was getting thicker. And I would sometimes cough and sputter, getting choked on the bulky fumes and heaving up silky gobs of pre-breathed oxygen. The aroma, I could barely stand it. Not that I was panicking or anything. That would be unwise.
The tenth hour. It was getting to the point where closing my eyes as tight as they could was even brighter than the void that surrounded me. Not sure if I was going crazy or anything. But I just felt it was safer to keep my eyes shut. It felt secure. Like I wasn't even inside the room, and could drift off into, anywhere I wanted. Blissful and serene. And I enjoyed it. Paying no regard to the grim scent of the dirty air, or the room, I felt myself drift off into-
An ear-splitting crash.
Like heavy masses of steel slamming into one another.
Not six feet away from me. I jumped again, and my heart quivered and shook. So much built up inside of me at once. My bones locked in their place, still. I wanted to move. I wanted to. But fear, fear itself had its deathly grip on me, its bloody claws around my neck I could almost feel pricking into my veins like thorns. I couldn't move. Teeth gritting against each other like a grindstone against steel, I let out a shrill, high-pitched whine that soon turned into a dense, nasally grunt. A sensation of mortifying shock, within seconds morphed into a spasm-inducing uncontrollable anger. My heart on the brink of bursting, and my head only particle-length away from cracking open like an egg. But I still didn't panic. No. I couldn't. Panicking was always, always, the one thing I was taught never to do in any situation. I can't. That would be giving up. That would be losing... And I don't want to lose.
That deep, sinister rumbling. I soon got used to it. But I could only hope to see anything within an inch of my face. I was afraid to so much as even move a single muscle. Factory equipment is what it sounded like. Like the gnashing teeth of a man-high saw ready to slice my neck open and feast.
But I would never know what it was.
The only thing that was left to do is to not panic. And stay there. Motionless. A frail breeze kissed my cheek, from the direction of the rumbling. Now I was really curious. And it was driving me absolutely fucking crazy. What the hell was that sound?! The rumbling got louder by the second. The breeze was taunting me, slicing at my neck. The fumes in the air were still acrid like poison, and it was still a challenge in itself to even breathe. It's almost like I wanted to be suffocated. I didn't want to breathe. I didn't want to live! I couldn't tell whether beads of sweat were rolling down my face or tears of insanity. I begged for the savage roaring to just take me away already.
But at the same time, that rumbling. That breeze. I wanted it to get closer. I don't care if I have to lose a finger or a limb guiding my arm foolishly across a serrated chainsaw-like blade. I wanted it. The breeze. The air. It pleased me. Satisfied me in a twisted sort of way. I wanted to breathe. I wanted to taste fresh air.
I inched my face over to the breeze, breathing in through my nose and exhaling the air softly. I could feel the breeze settling on my face, drying the panic-induced sweat that rolled down my cheeks like hot, blistering tears. My tongue stuck out, leaving the dry air to settle on warm, fleshy skin cells. And it felt... so good. Everything was in solace again. If I could keep this distance away from whatever was making such infernal noises and squeals, surely no harm could be done. I would just stay here, and breathe. And breathe.
My eyelids were getting heavy again. I lost count of what hour it was. I couldn't even hear the faint droplets anymore, the grinding of the machinery was far too overpowering. But I didn't care. My parents used to go on rants about how technology never helped us. It only served to do more evil than good in the world. They exclaimed that they were tools of destruction, and were only used for the wrong purposes. Ironic. Seems like that's all I'm relying on right now.
The image of my old man came to mind. Then the image of his eye, his putrid eye. Then the car wreck. That eased my mind even further. The glass shards jabbing into his skin from the windshield, and the sharp prongs of manufactured iron and steel that pricked at his flesh. They never let me see the accident. So I would daydream of how the wreck played out. I would envision the glass shards ripping into him and disfiguring his face. His jaw lop-sided. He couldn't be able to talk even if he was still alive. I envisioned how long it took. How painful it was. What bones were broken. What lucky bones were left unscathed by some incredible feat. How much blood on the glass and the car, what parts of him were signed by the friction of the leather seats clashing together. There were so many factors to explore...
I thought of him, and I laughed. I tried to hold it back. But I couldn't. I wouldn't even if I had the choice. The end of his life was such a beautiful thing to me. I loved it. I would play it over and over again in my head like a recording until I couldn't stop laughing. My sides were splitting open, and soon light gasps of chuckling matured into something more. Something I couldn't hold back if I tried. Developing into bellowing bursts of laughter. I couldn't breathe. I felt so brilliant. I didn't even care about the raunchy air anymore. It was so relieving to finally find something I could laugh at. Something I could be so happy about in the midst of such a depressing and dreary landscape. My father. The physical manifestation of sin born into human skin and bone. To see him die, was an honor. And a privilege I'll only get to embrace once. I can still hear his screams. I can still remember that twisted hunger he had in his left eye. His hands clenched, fingernails digging into his palms like he wanted to strangle me. I only laughed at the thought again, and again. Why? Well, because it was funny of course.
I kept losing track of how long I had been in there. It was for at least six hours. There was a leak somewhere in the room, and small droplets of water plummeted into a steel bucket and made a distinct dripping noise. I counted thirty minutes between each drop. And I'm pretty sure I heard the twelfth drop just now. Or was it thirteen. Maybe it was eleven, and I accidentally counted over. Either way, it was safe to estimate it at around six hours. But the air was getting coarse and smelt of raunchy overuse. Like I was breathing in the same filtered air time after time. A headache. Growing within the temples of my skull. Not anything too severe, but it was sharp. Throbbing. Like my cerebellum had its very own heartbeat. I could almost hear the brainstem roots popping.
Hour seven. Still laying limp as a rag doll on the table. Moving around on it, it was hard to suggest what exactly it was made out of. Maybe a dense granite or sediment rock. Maybe a fine-grained and sanded basswood or cedar plank. I felt a coarse stone scraping against my lower back and draw a thin layer of blood and skin from me. Unexpected. It took me by great surprise, as I jerked forward away from the pain. I gritted my teeth. My eyes pulsated, and there was a dull hammering on my chest. Still, I tried not to panic. It was always my last resort, and I wasn't about to go insane at any given point.
It's been about eight hours in total now. For some reason, I didn't feel the need to panic. Indifferent as to whether or not it was some type of dream. Maybe I took too much allergy medicine the night before. The headache started getting worse, and the throbbing more prominent than before. Like something was inside of my brain, and I practically felt it peeking out from its soft, fleshy frame. Even the air itself was downright nauseating to even so much as breathe in. It wasn't even filtered or anything. Just cold, acrid, factory-polluted fumes. There were times I would feel my throat clog. It was getting thicker. And I would sometimes cough and sputter, getting choked on the bulky fumes and heaving up silky gobs of pre-breathed oxygen. The aroma, I could barely stand it. Not that I was panicking or anything. That would be unwise.
The tenth hour. It was getting to the point where closing my eyes as tight as they could was even brighter than the void that surrounded me. Not sure if I was going crazy or anything. But I just felt it was safer to keep my eyes shut. It felt secure. Like I wasn't even inside the room, and could drift off into, anywhere I wanted. Blissful and serene. And I enjoyed it. Paying no regard to the grim scent of the dirty air, or the room, I felt myself drift off into-
An ear-splitting crash.
Like heavy masses of steel slamming into one another.
Not six feet away from me. I jumped again, and my heart quivered and shook. So much built up inside of me at once. My bones locked in their place, still. I wanted to move. I wanted to. But fear, fear itself had its deathly grip on me, its bloody claws around my neck I could almost feel pricking into my veins like thorns. I couldn't move. Teeth gritting against each other like a grindstone against steel, I let out a shrill, high-pitched whine that soon turned into a dense, nasally grunt. A sensation of mortifying shock, within seconds morphed into a spasm-inducing uncontrollable anger. My heart on the brink of bursting, and my head only particle-length away from cracking open like an egg. But I still didn't panic. No. I couldn't. Panicking was always, always, the one thing I was taught never to do in any situation. I can't. That would be giving up. That would be losing... And I don't want to lose.
That deep, sinister rumbling. I soon got used to it. But I could only hope to see anything within an inch of my face. I was afraid to so much as even move a single muscle. Factory equipment is what it sounded like. Like the gnashing teeth of a man-high saw ready to slice my neck open and feast.
But I would never know what it was.
The only thing that was left to do is to not panic. And stay there. Motionless. A frail breeze kissed my cheek, from the direction of the rumbling. Now I was really curious. And it was driving me absolutely fucking crazy. What the hell was that sound?! The rumbling got louder by the second. The breeze was taunting me, slicing at my neck. The fumes in the air were still acrid like poison, and it was still a challenge in itself to even breathe. It's almost like I wanted to be suffocated. I didn't want to breathe. I didn't want to live! I couldn't tell whether beads of sweat were rolling down my face or tears of insanity. I begged for the savage roaring to just take me away already.
But at the same time, that rumbling. That breeze. I wanted it to get closer. I don't care if I have to lose a finger or a limb guiding my arm foolishly across a serrated chainsaw-like blade. I wanted it. The breeze. The air. It pleased me. Satisfied me in a twisted sort of way. I wanted to breathe. I wanted to taste fresh air.
I inched my face over to the breeze, breathing in through my nose and exhaling the air softly. I could feel the breeze settling on my face, drying the panic-induced sweat that rolled down my cheeks like hot, blistering tears. My tongue stuck out, leaving the dry air to settle on warm, fleshy skin cells. And it felt... so good. Everything was in solace again. If I could keep this distance away from whatever was making such infernal noises and squeals, surely no harm could be done. I would just stay here, and breathe. And breathe.
My eyelids were getting heavy again. I lost count of what hour it was. I couldn't even hear the faint droplets anymore, the grinding of the machinery was far too overpowering. But I didn't care. My parents used to go on rants about how technology never helped us. It only served to do more evil than good in the world. They exclaimed that they were tools of destruction, and were only used for the wrong purposes. Ironic. Seems like that's all I'm relying on right now.
The image of my old man came to mind. Then the image of his eye, his putrid eye. Then the car wreck. That eased my mind even further. The glass shards jabbing into his skin from the windshield, and the sharp prongs of manufactured iron and steel that pricked at his flesh. They never let me see the accident. So I would daydream of how the wreck played out. I would envision the glass shards ripping into him and disfiguring his face. His jaw lop-sided. He couldn't be able to talk even if he was still alive. I envisioned how long it took. How painful it was. What bones were broken. What lucky bones were left unscathed by some incredible feat. How much blood on the glass and the car, what parts of him were signed by the friction of the leather seats clashing together. There were so many factors to explore...
I thought of him, and I laughed. I tried to hold it back. But I couldn't. I wouldn't even if I had the choice. The end of his life was such a beautiful thing to me. I loved it. I would play it over and over again in my head like a recording until I couldn't stop laughing. My sides were splitting open, and soon light gasps of chuckling matured into something more. Something I couldn't hold back if I tried. Developing into bellowing bursts of laughter. I couldn't breathe. I felt so brilliant. I didn't even care about the raunchy air anymore. It was so relieving to finally find something I could laugh at. Something I could be so happy about in the midst of such a depressing and dreary landscape. My father. The physical manifestation of sin born into human skin and bone. To see him die, was an honor. And a privilege I'll only get to embrace once. I can still hear his screams. I can still remember that twisted hunger he had in his left eye. His hands clenched, fingernails digging into his palms like he wanted to strangle me. I only laughed at the thought again, and again. Why? Well, because it was funny of course.