The Electric Eye
Whenever I look outside my window nowadays, I'm reminded of some lyrics from one of my favorite Black Sabbath songs. I think it went something like "and so in the sky...shines the electric eye...soon the natural king...takes earth under his wing." Some creepy shit like that.
I mean, why not? The days are getting creepier and creepier now that the apocalypse finally happened. Don't ask me exactly how it happened, I don't have those answers. Maybe a comet plowed into the soft side of the planet, maybe it's some alien invasion or robot uprising. Maybe some militaristic snot decided to say "Piss off," while flexing their nuclear arms, shooting off some rockets here and getting some back right in the ass (that's my two-cent definition of mutually assured destruction).
I don't know. All I do know is that fires are going off in the distance, the sky is black, and there's a hole in the middle of it looking like a titanic eye. It scared the living hell out of me the first week, but it hasn't really done anything, so why should I be afraid of it?
I walk away from the window and go over to the table in the tiny kitchen; seeing that thing up there always gives me a headache. I share an apartment with two other guys, but they're both so busy that I rarely see them anymore. There's Jake, a skinny little wolf from Arkansas who wants to be a mechanic, but if you ask me, he would have a much more prosperous future in cooking. I don't really have much respect for him, though. Would you have respect for someone who asked for forty dollars one time and has since neglected to pay it back?
Ah, well, probably doesn't matter anymore, does it? If there's anything I've learned from reading Alas, Babylon, its that paper money becomes as useful as an old rusted tin can.
Then there is Blaine, a tall and nicely built kangaroo studying to be a physician. Blaine doesn't know that I have a crush on him, even though I've been a bit...unsubtle. Either he's so narrow-minded that he's incapable of figuring it out, or he's just chalked it up to playful male banter.
I smiled to myself as I drank my coffee. My hands were shaking slightly, but it wasn't important. Anyway, Blaine had to know. He'd be stupid if he didn't know, and Blaine isn't stupid. Every time I talk to him he tells me things I've never known before. He's a veritable treasure trove of knowledge, an erudite jack-of-all-trades.
I heard a door open and shut, a bag burdened down by heavy books dropped onto a chair, a long sigh built up after a long hard day, and I knew Blaine was back. I waited for him in the kitchen; he always went to the refrigerator for a beer. Just then I heard something outside, a kind of high-pitched tittering, like the sound all the giant radioactive spiders have in the old B-movies. I got up and went to the window again, peering through the fogged-up glass.
Something was moving just beyond the trees, something big and dark. Our apartment was on the first floor of a three-story building, which was flanked on three sides by thin spruce trees and a tall dark brush. Eight beyond the glass was where the dark brambles rose up like twisted, knotted spider legs. I could see two large, lamp-like eyes glaring from the brush with a fiery orange light. A black, talon-like claw shot out from the bushes and scraped against the glass.
"Hey, man. See anything out there?"
I heard Blaine calling from the table. The talon scratched at the glass, less than an inch from my nose. "No," I said. "Not really. Nothing important."
I heard the kangaroo grunt behind me. The click and rattlesnake fizzing of the beer echoed in the relatively empty space. I wanted to tell him how I felt about him; how he made me feel every time he looks at me, the chill that travels down my spine when he says my name. There was an itch on my arm. I started scratching it.
"Oh, by the way," Blaine said. "A package came for you today."
The chair scraped against the cold tiled floor. I heard his footsteps as he came closer. I clenched my fists, wanting to scream in his face about all the things that have been going on for the past three weeks. The electric eye, the weird stuff outside, emotional shit. I wanted to scream about everything these days.
He tapped my shoulder with the corner of the package. It was small and simple, wrapped in mud-colored paper and bound in dark twine. I took it from him, warily glancing up at his big diamond-like eyes.
"So what's out there?" He asked.
I couldn't believe my ears. It was such a stupid question. He had to have seen all the things that I see; he was outside, damn it! I sniffed and started tapping the window--the hideous talon outside rapped on the other side in response. "Don't tell me you can't see it," I said angrily.
"See what?" Blaine asked, blatantly confused. He leaned in closer to me, training his eyes on what was outside. He was so close I could smell the rough scent of his sweat, faintly spiked with a dash of some modern cologne. I stopped tapping on the window and clenched my fingers again. My fists clenched so hard I could feel my palms becoming wet with my own perspiration. It was so damn unbearable. The urge to shout was building up inside my chest, and for one short moment it felt like all the emotions I had made me weightless.
But what pissed me off was that he was pretending not to see. For all the feelings I had for him, he was making fun of me.
"That," I said, nodding my head so hard that I almost smacked my nose on the glass. "All of it."
I could feel his eyes boring into the side of my skull. The game he was playing was becoming very old quite fast. I looked him in the eye and said "Don't tell me you can't see that thing up there in the sky. It's been there for a week now."
There was a short pause before Blaine said "Do you know where Jake is?"
I shrugged. "Probably still out there, scrounging up whatever he can. He'll have to get his shit together if he's going to get through this, Blaine. I tell you, Doomsday isn't fun when all you've got is an old coffee maker and some Saran-wrapped cookies."
I bit my lip as I glanced at him. He was looking at me strangely, like I was some odd bit of stuff on the sole of his shoe. I was getting confused as well as angry; he asked me a question and I answered him. Why was he still playing this stupid game?
Blaine leaned his head in closer to mine, and as he did my heart started to crash and boom and clang inside my head like a huge iron mill. I started to sweat; I though he was going to kiss me, but instead he whispered in my ear. "How's your medication going, man?"
I smiled, shook my head, and cleared my throat. "The doctor had me on half the usual amount. He said I'd been making so much progress that it would be alright if I just took one every now and then. So I stopped taking them altogether."
"What?"
I couldn't stand it, I had to do it. Now or never, right? I grabbed his head in my hands and kissed him on the lips. I breathed in his scent, his course sweaty smell fused with some crappy four-dollar "odor protection" deodorant. Apparently he was trying to grow a moustache--I never noticed that before.
I felt him push on my chest, softly at first--for a second I though he was enjoying it--then more forcefully. I let him go and took a step back, smiling. I had finally done what I wanted to do, what I've dreamed of doing for months now, and the feeling of having all that time spent in fantasy come to reality was something like a cosmic orgasm. He was staring at me with large eyes, and I could see from them that he was trying to pick an emotion out of a whole bucketful; shock, confusion, anger, hate. You could see all of it.
Then I noticed something else. On either side of the kangaroo's face was a red stain just below the eye. My hands must have been bleeding; that's why they were wet. It looked like Blaine was blushing, and with the expressions he was making, I couldn't help but laugh. He looked like some bastardized Raggedy-Andy.
I left Blaine standing there, confused as hell as I walked back to my room. I was laughing so hard I was literally stumbling forward while fumbling for my key. I keep all my keys on a big red lanyard that says GO AWAY on it. I find it and open the door to my room, laughing all the way. I shut the door and sit down on my bed, holding my sides, trying to keep the laughter inside. Then I realized something that made me stop laughing and sit up straight.
After what I just did, Blaine wouldn't want anything to do with me. He'll think I'm a freak, or crazy, or worse. He won't talk to me anymore.
Damn...I didn't think the significance of the end of the world could sink in more deeply than it just has. I look at my hands, palms bloody from having my fingernails into them. I started to cry; maybe I really was insane.
I go to the window and look up at the sky. I can still see the electric eye. You know, sometimes I think it follows me. I remembered how scared I was when I saw it for the first time.
It still scares me.