Short Fiction: Reeti Roy

Those Eyes

I knew this would change everything but as I stood there transfixed, I felt helpless.

I knew I had it coming but like most people who don’t want to look things straight in the eye, especially when it’s unpleasant, I had very carefully shunned the thoughts out of my mind. As I stood there, looking at the pale blue-grey eyes, they almost looked petrified to me. “P-E-T-R-I-F-I-E-D”, he had once told me. The word originally means “turned to stone”. I had smiled at him then. My unquenchable thirst for knowledge had been momentarily satisfied. As I looked at him now, I wondered whether it was he who was petrified, or whether it was me. I wasn’t feeling a thing. And his eyes – his eyes looked dreamy. They looked like they were lost in some far away land, where silence surrounded the magical beings – where everything was so secretive and quietly done that even drops of dew sounded harsh to the ears. The doctors had called the eyes lifeless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another pair of eyes that is so distinctive. Those blue-grey eyes, fringed with brown lashes. A reminder of the sea. The calm sea, capable of destruction, capable of hurt, incisive and destructive, but also capable of healing.Capable of being tender.

The doctors said that his ailment had blown the light out of his eyes, and yet, I had never seen another pair of eyes that shone as bright as the morning sunshine, that spoke with an assertion, that gleamed like the forest fire, ready to attack, ready to conquer, ready to defend itself.

I remember a time when those eyes winked at me playfully, the iris and the pupil dancing in tandem to a far-fetched eerie tune of the soul – the searching soul. The soul of a person that tried to read those eyes. To put that final bit of jigsaw together… to seek comprehension in the incomprehensible. To find comfort in the uncomfortable. Those livid eyes, angered and passionate… quiet, controlled anger… deep dark anger…as if those eyes spewed venom…
A bat of an eyelid, a blink-and- a-miss. “A-L-C-O-H-O-L”, he said. “The etymology is Arabic, Al Kohl – means adding lustre to the spirit.” And then, I saw those eyes, drinking in the delight… with the pride of having imparted knowledge.
The eyes, that seemed to be smiling all the time, or laughing, or even mocking me jeeringly, or teasing me, playfully.

Those eyes are now being called listless and helpless. Those eyes had a soul. A body. A mind. A spirit. And feelings.

And then, they closed. And with them, closed a myriad dreams. .A thousand thoughts. A thousand people’s good wishes and prayers. And… one person’s hope.
As they wheeled him out of the hospital, and took him to his crematorium, those eyes opened for a bit and looked at me. Those same twinkling eyes, the same wondrous vision.

Startled, I told them to stop. Told them that his eyes were alive. Told them that he was no wimp.That he was not a quitter. He was a fighter. They gave me sympathetic glances, but brushed me aside. And laid him down. And covered him with a sparkling white starched blanket.

That vision – that one look at me – kept flashing in front of my eyes. Eyes fraught with pain. Eyes flooded with tears. Eyes filled with anguish. Eyes in denial. Eyes in agony. Eyes in disbelief. Eyes that longed for the other pair to sit up, and take notice of them. Eyes that sought solace in those closed eyes. Eyes that seemed to shimmer in the light of the moon. Eyes, that danced like a dragonfly. Eyes that spoke like the murmurings of the wind.

One single tear planted itself on those closed eyes. And it seemed to glimmer like a diamond. Just for a millisecond.

I could’ve sworn that those eyes twitched.
Did they really?
I’ll never know.

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Reeti Roy is an eighteen year old student pursuing a bachelors degree in English Literature From Jadavpur University, Calcutta. She has published short stories and poems in The Statesman, The Telegraph and The Times Of India, aspires to be a journalist, and in her spare time loves painting, reading and listening to music.