Читать книгу Short Stories and Nonsense - W.R. Lacy - Страница 10

Red Eye

Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered if what you saw was real or if you just imagined it? That happened to a friend of mine. She was a young woman, well educated, had a good job, and seemed very settled. One day she called me on the phone and said she was having a problem. She seemed very disturbed and shook up. She said a big red eye had been watching her. She said this had just started, and she didn’t know what to do about it. It seemed to follow her, wherever she went. She could be shopping, and suddenly, there it was. She said sometimes it blinks and then goes away. It almost winks at her in a sly manner. One night, she woke up suddenly to see it sitting by her bedside. “Go away!” she screamed, but the eye shook no. She doesn’t know where it came from or why it has chosen her to harass. She has never been crazy or dingy. She has always been levelheaded and stable.

This actually started one day last summer. She was sitting outside enjoying the weather when suddenly a big boom startled her. At first, she thought it was a clap of thunder, but there were no clouds in the sky. After that, the red eye started annoying her. At first, it only happened occasionally, but as time went by, the red eye stayed longer and longer. It seemed to enjoy annoying her. Sometimes it frightened her. Sometimes it came and went, like it faded in and out. Most of the time, it just hung around all day. It didn’t bother her when she had personal things to do, but it did sit on the kitchen cabinet when she cooked, just watching, of course; it didn’t talk, just stared. She stated she was kind of getting used having it around, but it still scared her sometimes. She stated she feels like she is being analyzed for something. She tried talking to it and asking it questions, but it never indicated that it understood what she is saying. Sometimes when she talked to it, she gets a nod or a shake, whatever that meant. She wondered if it would always be in her life or if it would get tired and go back where it came from. At one time, she tried to ignore it. No luck. Then one time, she tried to run it out. Again, no luck. It seemed like she was the only one that could see it, or if others could see it, they wouldn’t talk about it At least, no one stared at her like she was crazy with a big red eye following her around. Apparently, it was invisible to other people.

As time went by, she almost forgot about the eye. Sometimes it would show up in unexpected places. Like she was attending a friend’s wedding, and there it was, on the altar. She almost gasped out loud but managed to cover it up with a cough. As years went by, the girl became older. She never married. She said she felt like she already had a husband in some ways. The eye never helped her in anyway, just stared. Close to the end of her life, she wondered why the eye stayed around. It never changed the way it looked and certainly never looked any older. She remembered the first she saw it and how afraid of it she was. As she thought back, over the years, she realized it had never harmed her, never forced her to do anything. It just followed her around. As she lay on her deathbed, with the eye on the footboard, she heard a loud boom, and the eye disappeared. At the same time, my friend drew her last breath. We would never know why she was followed around by a red eye all her life. We thought she might have been studied by someone from another planet. After all, he never spoke to her or indicated to her that he knew her. So we just assumed he was from outer space. No one has ever seen anything like it since.