While I Wasn't Looking (Part 2/2)

"What is wrong with you?” she’s yelling, crying, and I tell her not to freak out, that this is just an accident.

I blink and I’m suddenly standing slightly different, but I don’t think it’s a problem. I kneel down to clean up the glass that’s all over the tile floor. Whenever I blink, my hands seem to flicker, but I tell myself that this is normal, that this is what it’s like when you blink.

“What is this?” Julie’s saying. “What is this? What is this? Oh my god. What is this?”

She gets so emotional about messes like this. I tell her I’m going to pick it up, and I start gathering the pieces of the mirror.

I blink, and then I’m holding a piece of glass too tight. It’s long, thin, cutting into my palm, and I loosen my grip and start picking up more pieces. There’s such a mess, but Julie’s not helping.

I blink, and I’m gripping the one, long, thin piece of glass again. I’ve dropped the rest, and they’re shattering against the ground. The noise of them breaking against the bathroom floor is startling, and I keep shutting my eyes at the sound---a natural reaction. When it stops, when I open my eyes again, I’m standing so close to Julie.

Julie makes a whimpering sound, she’s got her arms wrapped around herself, she’s backed up against the wall, and she just keeps saying, “What is this? What is this? What is this?”

I ask her what’s wrong. I tell her she shouldn’t be so bothered about the mess. I’m going to pick it up.

“Get away from me,” she says.

I ask what’s wrong with her.

“Keep your eyes open,” she says. “We need to keep your eyes open. We need tape. We’re going to have to tape your eyes open.”



I tell her she’s worrying me. She doesn’t seem okay this morning. I’m trying to comfort her, now. I reach out to put a hand on her shoulder, but she pulls away from me. “Honey,” I’m saying. “Julie, honey, you need to calm down.” I try to reassure her, try to hold her, but she screams. It’s so loud that I tense up, my eyes close.

The next things I see is Julie in the bathtub, but the tub is empty. There is blood circling the drain, and I remember that she just cut herself shaving. Could she have cut herself that deeply? Her eyes are wet and looking at me, but the color is duller than I remember. I’m worried that the spark has gone out of our relationship. I’m worried that she’s not feeling well.

“Julie?” I ask, somehow it’s a full question. She looks sick. Pale. Like she might have suddenly come down with the flu.

I don’t remember her getting in the tub.

There is blood on the floor, and it might be hers or mine. I’m still holding a piece of the mirror, and it’s cutting into my palm, blood is dripping from my hand.

Something is wrong, I know.

I can’t keep track of things.

How am I supposed to keep control if I can’t see what’s happening?

Julie seems like she has fallen asleep, but her eyes are wide open. She isn’t blinking like I am. She’s so quiet.

“Julie,” I say. “What’s wrong, honey?”

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at me like I’m not there. We hardly talk anymore.

“Julie!” I’m screaming, and I grab her by the shoulders, but she won’t look at me. I start shaking her, and her head rolls loosely on her neck. Her skin is cold. She feels like she’s made of clay.

Something is wrong with Julie. I bury my face in the curve of her neck and I’m crying against her.

When I open my eyes again, the room looks much brighter. The whole house is filled with light, as if it were midday, but I’m sure it’s still morning. How long had I been crying?

I’m still leaning over the bathtub, but Julie’s not there anymore. I don’t understand what I’m looking at. The bathtub is a maddening mess of grays and pinks and reds and whites and browns. Mostly reds. It all looks slick, wet. Large chunks of blubbery rubble. It’s chaotic, and I can’t make sense of it. The smell is horrible, so I look away. I turn around and just look at the white wall, focusing on it. I’m trying to clear my mind, because I can feel it about to go frantic. I can feel so many crazed thoughts wanting to surface. My mind has become something tense and unpredictable. A caged animal. Something to poke sticks at and watch from a distance, wait for its raw wildness to show.

My hands ache. The muscles in my arms feel sore. Up to my elbows, my arms are the dark brown color of blood, but most is dried and flaking off.

“This is too much,” I tell Julie, but I don’t know where she is. “This morning is a disaster. We’re falling apart.” I’m frustrated, so I’m rubbing my eyes, as if I might rub away the situation. I keep rubbing my eyes, and it’s somehow relaxing, or at least distracting.

When I stop, only one eye opens. The other feels hot, and the warmth spreads down my cheek, my chin, my chest, drips onto the floor. I reach up to feel it and realize that my hand disappears when it gets close to that eye. It’s not seeing. My hand feels how wet it is there, and at first I think I’m crying, but I pull my hand away and see that it’s not tears streaming down my face. My fingers are wet with blood from my eye.

The pain is electric, a bolt in my head.

I blink and I notice my arm shift. My arm covered in dark flakes of dried blood.

I blink, and my arm shifts again, my hand is close to my face.

I blink, and my fingers are all gathered around my eye, my good eye.

I blink, and my thumb, pointer, and middle fingers are pushed against my eye socket. It’s painful, so I pull my hand away.

I’m scared to close my eyes.

I blink, and my hand is at my eye again.

Every time I’m not looking, my hand reaches at my eye. I’m so afraid of what I’ll do when I can’t see myself, when my eyes are closed for an instant.

I use one hand to hold my eyelids open. I can feel them twitch and try to blink as my eye slowly dries, but I know that if I do blink I’ll tear my eye out. With the other hand, I’m searching through the cupboards until I find the eye drops. I have some difficulties getting the bottle out of its little box and getting the cap off, but it feels so good when the liquid drips onto my eye. My eyelids tense when the drop hits, but I can’t let myself not see for an instant. I have to always be seeing.

I go through the cupboard again and get a little bottle of quick-drying craft glue. Holding my eye open, I squeeze a line of glue out over the open lids and eye lashes. The fumes sting, like needles sinking into flesh. As the glue dries, it burns. I can feel the heat through my eye lid, I feel it warming my eyeball. When it cools again, I know it’s dry.

I’m afraid to pull my hand away, to stop holding my eyelids open, but I have to. My hand is getting tired. I have to trust that the glue will hold.

Something else will take over if I stop seeing.

Something terrible is waiting in me.

Don’t blink, I tell myself.



­­Don’t ever close your eyes again.