THE EYE
Every day for Brian begins and ends with the eye watching him – every day.
It all started two weeks ago and it’s been relentless ever since.
The eye is everywhere.
When Brian’s at work the eye is watching him from inside his computer screen. Or staring at him reflecting off the coffee maker. The eye flames bright and big, its lashes are long and dark and it’s colour is the shade of brown.
It’s especially bright when he’s with Helen. Like the eye knew all along.
Helen doesn’t see the eye. Brian will be watching the television and the eye will shine through the screen and beam out towards Brian.
“Do you see it?” Brian will say.
“See what?” Helen will usually reply.
It started on that night two weeks back when Brian drove down to the quarry. The eye was flashing across his windscreen and into his field of vision as he drove, he could barely see anything else. At first Brian thought it was the streetlights, but when he got off the major roads and down those country roads that don’t have any streetlights, it persisted.
When he got to the quarry and stared down into that mass of water, the eye shone through the water. The eye stared back up towards him with a resolute persistence. It hasn’t stopped since.
The eye was driving Brian insane. Brian would close his eyes to sleep at night and right in the centre of his mind’s eye was the eye. Brian tried speaking to the eye.
“Why are you following me?” He’d ask the eye. The eye didn’t speak, it just shone.
- It started on the drive to the quarry.
Brian tried to remember other details about that night at the quarry and where the eye could have come from.
He remembered the phone call to Helen.
“It’s done.” He told her and then smashed the phone into pieces.
He remembered the feel of the garbage bag, as he hauled it from out of the boot and dragged it from his car into the water. The splash of the quarry's water as the bag slowly sunk down into the depths.
Brian remembered the last thing Lillian said to him back at the house that night.
Don’t.
Her last words.
Brian remembered the weeks of planning beforehand with Helen.
“Tell the police I was with you here… Don’t worry about being seen, nobody ever goes to the quarry at midnight.”
The rope, the gloves, the garbage bags, the car keys.
He can remember the feel of every item that night. How the rope’s frayed wiring felt on his hands. How the gloves felt.
How it felt to kill your wife.
The eye now follows him everywhere. Big and brown.
Lillian’s eyes were big and brown.
He can see it now staring out the barrel of the gun.
The eye was his conscience.
Pull the trigger and it’s gone.
The eye…
