Eyes Wide Open

This one I wrote a few months ago with the intention to experiment with dialogue. I am not sure how much I like the ending, but I decided to post it anyway, knowing that it will probably continue to be revised in the future.

------------------------

“At first I thought she was a jet engine, too big to be a bird. But she was fallin’ and I noticed she was too small to be a jet engine, to skinny, and she was flappin around too much. It wasn’t until she was only- I don’t know, twenty feet from the ground that I realized, by god! that’s a person falling!”

Sally Peterson watched her plummet from the window of the gas station where she worked, in Water Valley, Texas. “Not much happens here in Water Valley. I hardly have anyone stop in on a days work. I mean, shoot, the most exciting thing I can recall happening here were a coupla’ hitch hikers stopping in to buy a can of beans and ask about some campsites near by. The whole town heard about those two before they walked out the door.”
I had come to meet Sally in the gas station where she witnessed “the descent.”

As you drive down Highway 87 NE from San Angelo, Water Valley appears then passes in a matter of seconds. The only recognizable signs of civilization are the gas station and some houses tucked away in the foliage of small patches of trees. The trees appear to have been grown specifically for the job of concealing the minimal houses in town and they work brilliantly. Luckily I paid close attention to the mile markers and was able to spot the gas station and slow down before speeding past it in a blur.

Sally greeted me in the parking lot smoking a cigarette. “You that reporter?” she barked, “Well come on then. I’ll show you where I found her.” She walked past me, still getting out of the car, and marched across the highway, without any distinguishable glance to see if the road was clear. I snatched my recorder and camera and jogged, looking cautiously both ways, to catch up with Sally, who had already leapt over a small barbed wire fence. “Well come on! I don’t got all day. I gotta get back to the station!”

About one hundred and fifty yards past the barbed wire fence, there was a distinct dimple in the ground, which from a closer distance looks like a poorly dug grave. “That’s where I found her.”

. . .

It was an ordinary summer day in Water Valley. Sun struck the concrete with such force that it cracked and bled tar. Wind breathed with steaming gusts of wind. Tumbleweed probably rolled somewhere, but as Sally Peterson flipped through her newspaper, under the spinning fan set on high, she glanced up, spotting a dark figure in the sky. At first, she did not take much notice, but as her eyes adjusted to the sky’s glare, she realized the mysterious figure was falling. She put her paper down and stumbled closer to the door, never letting the falling shape leave her vision. As it neared the ground, she realized this descending figure was a human.

“I burst out them doors and ran as fast as my little legs could carry me. And, by god, when I got to that poor woman I was not sure what I had found. Well, she was, you know, down there in the ground. I guess she fell so hard that she got buried or something, so my first thought was to pull her out. I got on my knees and lowered myself into the hole. I grabbed her by the armpits and hoisted her up, kinda throwin- well placin her on the ground. I pulled myself up after her and turned her onto her back. Her face was bleedin, oh it was a mess, but it looked as though all the blood was pourin out of her eyelids. Now I was scared, real scared, shakin and stuff, but my intuition was to clean her up, so I pulled out my hankee and wiped a bit of the blood off of her face, but as my hankee touched her cheek, she shook uncontrollably; violently and screamed. God damn! I can’t get that scream out of my head. Well I got right up and ran, ah hell, I sprinted back to the station and called the police.”

The police arrived on scene within five minutes, but were dismissed only a few minutes later, with the arrival of three FBI agents and an ambulance. The body was taken away to a hospital outside of San Angelo (name classified) immediately. The three investigators were done questioning Sally within ten minutes, and the whole scene was cleared in no more than twenty-five minutes after Sally’s initial phone call to the police. Sally was informed that the descended woman had survived her fall, but all other information was “classified”.

The descended body was never identified. It was a week before she regained consciousness, but she had no memory of a name or where she was from, and her fingerprints were not on file. The nurses at the hospital nicknamed her Luci (short for Lucifer, the infamous “fallen” angel), and the name stuck, giving a title to the investigation, “The Investigation of Lucifer 22848.”

Luci was nursed back to health. Miraculously, she did not suffer from any broken bones in her fall. The only serious injury she had was the loss of her eyelids. “ They just looked severed off.” a doctor (name classified) commented during my visit to the hospital, “She was lucky though. We have some of the states best plastic surgeons and they were able to give Luci new ones. But good lord, when Luci awoke from her surgery, she immediately felt her eyes and began to shake and clutch the edge of her bed. I don’t know, I thought she was having a seizure at first, maybe an allergic reaction to the pain meds, but she began to scream, ‘MY LASHES! MY LASHES!’ and leapt from her bed, ripping the IV out of her wrist. I was scared, oh god I was scared. I backed away to the doorway as she picked up a tray of syringes, and hurled them at me. One almost hit me, god damnit.” The doctor ran to get help, and when he returned Luci had torn the room apart, and was now punching and kicking the walls viciously, until she slowly sunk and fell to the ground in tears.

Luci was sedated and brought to the nearest psychiatric hospital (name classified). It took weeks of sedation to mellow her incessant screaming and violent shaking, but she was finally controlled and able sit almost all day without any outbreaks.
. . .
I was given permission to interview Luci, and met with her in her room at the hospital. I was escorted to her room with a security guard and a doctor (names classified) and while we walked, the doctor warned me, “You know she does not talk much and when she does it its generally gibberish. I don’t know why you would want to interview her. Hell, you can interview me! I could tell you just as much, if not more, about her life. All she’ll talk about it her damn eyelashes!”

The guard unlocked Luci’s metal door, and as it opened, I saw her sitting and staring out of her barred window. Her room was empty, other than her bed and a vase of roses resting on her windowsill. There were no photographs on her walls, or letters stacked in the corner. It was only Luci and her roses. “Luci, that reporter from the city is here to talk to you. Now be polite. Give him your attention please.” She didn’t, but I entered anyway, pulling a seat up to the foot of her bed. “Hi my name is Mark. Can I ask you a few questions?” There was no response, so I continued, “I was told you have forgotten your name, is it okay if I call you Luci?” No response. “Okay Luci, I am told you have also forgot-“

“Do you have my eye lashes?” Luci turned and stared blankly at my face. She evaded the sight of my eyes and settled with the bridge of my nose. Her black hair was parted, barely uncovering her brown eyes, and her face was white, like porcelain.

“I don’t have your eyelashes, I’m sorry.” She turned her head back to the window and stared out into the distant fields. “Do you remember anything?” I asked, trying to redirect her attention to me, “I mean anything from the fall of course.” No response. “Maybe you could tell me something about your eye lashes-”

“My roots never found the ground.” Luci whispered.

I wasn’t ready for her frigid response and I sat silent and awkward. I stared at my blank notepad hoping to think of a quick response to attend to her words. “Um. . . Do you-”
I was interrupted.

“ I remember birth by my eye lashes. They stretched. Lids pulled to - light, cold light and Mama screamed. Lashes kept growing, filling the room. They were trimmed, always trimmed. I awoke in a dark basement, musky, cold. Locked up. Eyes wide open, lashes stretch, but trimmed. Always trimmed. Years and years, trimmed. Years and years locked up, basement musky, cold.”

I needed clarification. “What were trimmed? Where were you?”

“My lashes never stop - stopped reaching for light, the holy light - the highest light. Up there! They stretched to concrete, basement musky, cold. Trapped. For years trapped, cold and dark. Momma wouldn’t let me out. Momma wouldn’t let them reach. Lashes stretch, searching. Always searching for light. The Holy light.” She paused and smiled. Her mouth had barely any teeth and her gums were red with blood, “A crack! They found a crack! A crack in the concrete. And Light!” Luci pointed to the ceiling and bounced on her mattress, raising her whisper to an ear-splitting and fast paced shriek. “Eyes wide open, pushing, letting lashes stretch- let them stretch, let them grow! Momma wasn’t fast enough! Lashes grow! Grow! GROW! Find crack. They found light. Momma wasn’t fast enough to trim. Hahahaha! My lashes slipped through crack, pushing, splitting, pulling! Concrete cracked and crumbled. Pulling lashes up! Oh Holy light! And air. Hahahahahah! Air!” Lucy leapt to the window pointing skyward, “ No more basement musky, cold. Sky, light, oh blue, blue light. Yellow sun! Eyes pulled back. And pulled up, and up and up. Clouds grasped my roots and my roots stretched. Stretched up, stretched skyward! Leave this ground. Pull me up! Let me up! Oh Holy light, let me up!” Luci clutched the bars of her window, pulling, as if she were trying to rip them from the concrete. “Grey stars pulled me through the sky into – into a giant metal gate! Eyes pulled back, and lashes tangle - tangle around the gate. Oh pretty lashes. Solid white gate! Almost there! Almost home! But there, there!” she pointed skyward, “His hands! His hands, cold, yellow sun. Eyes stretched back. Tangled. Roots reaching, almost home. Cold white hands. God’s hands, clench. And how I thought I made it – home. Cold white hands. Cold yellow sun, clenching my lashes. Let me in! Oh Holy hands, oh Holy light, let me in! Clenching. Clutching.” She paused closing her eyes. “Cut!” Luci fell to the ground, clutching her eyes. She brought her knees to her face, and rocked back and forth mumbling.

“Luci, are you okay?” I whispered. She did not respond, but kept mumbling, so I tried again, “Luci, are you o-”

“Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut!” Luci slammed her fists to the ground again and again screaming, “Cut! Cut! Cut! Cut!”

The door flung open and the doctor zipped past me holding a syringe. I was grabbed and pulled to the door by the security guard and as the door was closing, I saw the doctor inject the syringe into Luci’s neck. The volume of her screams slowly diminished.

I was escorted to the hospital’s exit and asked politely never to return. As I walked to my car, I replayed the conversation just had with Luci in my head. I stood motionless for a few seconds breathing slowly, defusing my nerves. I closed my eyes, to think. What just happened? I felt my eye lashes brush against each other gently as they closed and I touched them with my fingertips, noticing their bent posture, curling up: skyward. I trembled as my eyes opened and was temporarily blinded by the glare of the bright yellow sun above me. I shaded my face with my hand and ran to my car. Climbing in, I sped away.

In the Basement

Is the relevance of material
Simply the recollection of light
Shimmering through the window in the basement?

Remember those hanging clothes
Glimmering, momentarily in
Sun lit specs of suspended dust
Twirling in eternal motion?

But it all seems rather frustrating
Scrambling in circles
Like pollen in the spring
Like time.