Vitality of Eyes

At first they were just flickers. The quiver of an eyelash here, the flash of an iris there.

When I tried to tell someone else, anyone, they waved me away. My “vivid imagination” rendered me incapable of validity.

So I stopped doing them in colour. I thought perhaps it was the colour that gave them such vitality. But it happened again, and now I’m not so sure.

They’re starting to look the same too; each pair of eyes has the same shape, the same lashes, even if they aren’t the same colour. The irises change from murky green to electric blue and all sorts of colours. The eyes’ equivalent of a mask. But now I’m starting recognize them.

And it’s happening more often. Sometimes I feel them on me, when I come close, or when I leave the room. Always watching.

And yesterday, they blinked.

Art by Svenja Jodicke

Text by Lucie MacAulay