February

The slow trudge of winter continued into February. Much like the month prior the cold still seemed to freeze the passing days and the people living through them. The year was still like a car spluttering its way through attempts to start, needing to warm up before it could really begin rolling.

This was reflected in the world’s growing understanding of the Eye’s changes; nothing had yet begun to move, but there was a rumbling beneath everything, resonating through the ground and into the people. Things were heating up.

“Rosa, hey, Rosa.” Marlie half-whispered, next to no regard for the classroom setting we were in. “Did you see the Eye today?”

“Uh, yeah. It's a giant eyeball in the sky, of course I saw it.” I replied, taking more care than she did to keep quiet.

“It’s definitely looking a little weird, right? It's not just me?” Her question was odd, one of those questions you ask when you’re building up to something and just need to buy some time by letting the other person respond. I simply nodded and waited for her to get to whatever she was building to.

“...Aren’t you freaked out by it?” She finally said, her half-whisper dropping to a full one, voice airy and dripping with concern. I wondered why she was so vulnerable with me; we weren’t that close, she’d never confided any worries in me before.

“I mean, a little, but I’m not sure what’s even happening with it.” I replied. “Kinda hard to be worried about it when you don’t even know what it is.”

“Right. Like, it could be nothing, couldn’t it?” The corners of her lips twitched, reassured.

“I mean, maybe? Who’s to say?” I remained skeptical, but I didn’t want to agitate Marlie further. We were in class still, after all, and at the time that sort of thing still seemed quite important. Why not let her just dismiss it? “But if something was really wrong, we’d probably know about it, right?”

“Right! Sorry, I just got a little worked up. You know my dad’s a trader, right? Apparently there’s been some weird stuff with the markets and… Oh, nevermind, it's all boring finance stuff.” Marlie smiled, the prospect of anything wrong once again made impossible in her mind.

Humans have a remarkable imagination, and never is it stronger than when one is in denial. Even as the Eye clearly began to close no one thought the world was going to end, or even that the Eye closing, which by now was pretty easy to observe, was possible. In thousands of years of human history never once had anything remotely similar occurred, so it was simply unthinkable that now, of all times, it would. It was literally staring us in the face, but the majority of people, myself included, were unable to stare back. Our eyes glazed over it, our brains effectively erased the image before us, smoothing it over for our own convenience. It was a survival instinct. We had bills to pay and mouths to feed, we simply couldn’t allow ourselves existential crises, not while there was still a level of deniability.

Her comment about the markets stuck with me. I did want to ask her more, but Mrs Cook finally noticed our back-and-forth and put a stop to it with two sharp calls of “Rosalind!” and “Marleen!”

Mom didn’t cook when Dad was home late; with only three mouths to feed she always thought it was a good excuse to buy some cheap fast food and save the ingredients and the effort for another day where we all ate together. After this habit was established all the rules went out the window. We didn’t even eat at the dinner table, just sat in the living room, watching TV while we ate.

The news too had caught on to the changes in the Eye. No outright reporting yet, no close-ups or scientific breakdowns, just opinions from the everyman. Most of them reiterated the usual, that it was nothing but a trick of the light. Some claimed it didn’t exist at all, edited by the media to create a panic. Pseudo-intellectuals offered theories about mass psychogenic illness or the earth’s axis gradually shifting. Only one person suggested anything near what was correct, though at the time he seemed the most unbelievable of all.

“It’s the end of the world.” He chuckled. His laugh was distinctive, almost like a repeated, high-pitched hiccuping. “The Eye is closing. Can’t bear to look at us anymore I imagine.” The reporter interviewing was visibly uncomfortable, but he kept a hand firmly on the microphone, forbidding her to move away. The reporter glanced toward the camera nervously.

They had no reason to expect the man to behave so strangely; At a glance, he was the model of an office worker, nicely grey pressed suit, neatly cut black hair, square glasses, tall with sharp features and a square jaw. If you asked a child to draw a businessman, they’d give you a portrait of this man.

“It's watched us for all our history, you know? All the wars, all the murders, the genocides, the ways we sell each other out for profit. Didn’t you ever consider it might want to look away? We’ve forced it to bear witness to horrors any man would be driven mad by, and you expect it to just keep watching forever?” As he spoke, he grew more impassioned, each word ballooning with more energy and passion than the last. His accent became more apparent, far more rural than his profession would have you expect. “Humanity’s cruel, but isn’t still that a bit too far? To expect that of something?”

“Sir, please let go of the microphone.” The reporter pleaded. Around the edge of the frame, the muscular shoulders of her security guards began to show themselves.

“Of course madam, but you did ask for my opinion, didn’t you? Free speech is a human right, you know.” He smiled the first of many smiles, a calm, lipless smile that would come to be known the world over.

“We’re running out of time though. Please, just-” The reporter tugged, but found herself struggling against him. While he appeared thin, he was driven by a strength beyond his body.

“Oh, my apologies, madam. I didn’t think you were on such a time limit. Allow me to just finish off then.” He smiled his smile again. The security’s shoulders disappeared and the reporter took a step back too, allowing the man a clear frame for the first time. He stared directly into the camera, his expression soft but eyes unwavering. “Check the stock markets. Tonight, before they have a chance to cover it up. They’re shorting everything, expecting an economic collapse. The end’s coming and they’re keeping you in the dark.”

He calmly passed the microphone back to the reporter and without a word or a look made his way out of frame, but not out of our lives. Eventually, most of the world would come to know him as Wallace Wickstrum, but for now, he was just an odd man who said some odd things on the TV.

“What a freak.” My brother sneered, before changing the channel. Although he dismissed him then, I noticed him rewatching the short clip a few hours later. I thought little of it at the time and joined my mother in the kitchen.

“Mom, what’s your take on the Eye?” I asked her, drawing her away from the dishes.

“Is this about the stuff on TV?” She turned to face me. “Honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it. Just a bunch of tabloids and fearmongering, good for ratings.” She smiled reassuringly.

I miss seeing that smile now.

“No, it's nothing to do with that, I had an assignment at school a couple weeks ago and I forgot to ask you.” I both lied and told the truth. It wasn’t about the TV, but it also wasn’t about the assignment; I was just so fixated on the Eye and still struggling to find my own interpretation, I thought drawing from hers could help.

She turned fully toward me now, leaning against the sink and tapping at her chin. “I suppose…” She nibbled at her nails. “It may sound bad, but it’s similar to the guy on TV’s.” I gave her a look, which she quickly protested with a self-conscious flapping of her hands. “No, it's not like that! I don’t think the world’s going to end or anything but… I think it is there to watch.” Her head wobbled back and forth, struggling to settle on the words she wanted.

Finally, she got it. “I think it's there so, no deed, good or bad, goes unseen.” Her eyes closed, she smiled softly, satisfied with the words she found.

It was a simple, perhaps naive idea. But I liked it. I nodded along with her explanation, satisfied too, for the moment.

From the living room, the door creaked open. My father had finally returned. “Where’s your mother?” He asked with exhaustion evident in his voice.

“In the kitchen, doing the dishes.” Mark replied.

“Isn’t that supposed to be your job?” Dad replied curtly.

“She offered.” Mark protested.

“She works a full time job, it's the least you could do!” His patience was running immensely thin today, tension rose with each word.

“It’s one freaking time, honestly it's not a big deal!” Mark, for better or for worse, always matched Dad’s energy. They truly were father and son.

“It’s not about the dishes, this is about you pulling your weight! We don’t charge you rent, you don’t have a job, the least you could do is-”

“I’m looking for a job! I am! They all ask for years of experience for entry level stuff, it's hard!”

“You have a degree! Tell them about that and make a good impression!”

“A degree in theatre! It's basically useless!”

“You chose it! You could’ve gone for a more useful degree, but you didn’t, and now you have to find another way to make it work! You need to stop with the excuses!”

“These aren’t excuses, these are the reasons!”

By now Mom and I were peering our heads through the doorway. I think in his heart of hearts, my Dad knew Mark meant well, and that he was likely justified in his frustration, but he couldn’t bear to not get the last word in front of his wife and daughter.

“I want you out of here in the next two years! You need to buck your ideas up and start thinking about your future!” A cruel ultimatum, neither me or my mother bought it, but it appeared Mark did.

He shot up to his feet, grumbling under his breath. He didn’t have the will to argue back anymore, just storming away to his room, hissing an angry dismissal under his breath.

“Whatever. I probably won’t even be around by then.”

At the time, we didn’t grasp the gravity of those words. Much like the prospect of the Eye closing, the implication seemed so impossible that our brains smoothed over them. I’m sure my mother and father forgot entirely the exact words he said, but they would eventually come to learn what they meant in the most intimately horrible of ways.