In Her Eyes – Part 2
by John Walker on Mar.13, 2006, under The Rest
Who am I?
It was the question that held every thinker captive, and was possibly the stupidest, and the simplest question of all. She was. That was it – so obvious, so complete, and so beyond the understanding of the bleary-eyed citizens of the world.
A far more difficult question, and one she realised man would be far better exploring at such lengths was ‘Why am I lonely?’. Such a pathetic notion. It had been a feeling – perhaps an emotion – that had once so dominated her life, wrapped around her like the bandages of a mummy. Great stretches of her time had been spent desperately reaching out to others: she had been an octopus of need, exploring tentacles seeking for connections. If she could find the right link, curl her arm around the right soul, then she would be able to feel safe, to feel loved. Idiotic. All this time spent turning the world upside down in the search for completeness, when the answer had always laid inside.
The seal around the fridge door let go of its sucking grip, opened a crack, and then hissed closed again. Suck, open, hiss, close. Again. Again. Suck, hiss, suck, hiss. The noise pleased her – not for its dull, lifeless sound – but for representing the door’s obedience. It had been the first thing she had moved, and remained her most common target. Suck, hiss, suck, hiss. The sorry little light inside flickered itself on and off with each movement, so weak it was barely noticeable.
In the same way as the glare of the world had dimmed the stars inside her, now the brilliant light in her mind faded the detail outside. There was nothing special about the suck or the hiss, nor the light or the movement. It was the reaction inside her that made the action worthwhile. Each time she used this new region of her brain it lit up hot and red, warm and sweet. When she pulled down gently, she would hear the suck outside, but more, absorb the glow inside. When she pushed back up, there was the hiss, but also the delicious burst of colour. Suck, hiss, suck, hiss, suck, hiss, smack!
The fridge door hit the wall with a ferocity that sent cracks through its frame. Inside, she exploded in awesome reds and oranges.
***
Ago.
It is on a tube train, the Piccadilly Line, somewhere between Charing Cross and Paddington. A sensible time of day – not first thing in the morning with its heavy crushes of suits and cameras, nor late afternoon full of avoiding the rush – perhaps near three. Seats are all filled, and a couple are leaning in the doorway, resting on the padded ledge, wanting to look casual and tube weary, but giving themselves away with frequent glances as the station guide above the door. She is sat second from the end, a large Chinese man on her right, chewing on a stick, a neat and almost pretty woman on her left.
The tube is stopping in all the wrong places, in the way that tubes do, pulling to a halt as if in a station, but in the darkness of a solid tunnel. The tube train is blind. People are glancing out of the windows, seeing nothing but tunnel, and wondering to themselves.
The train reaches a station, the doors false start, open, and the leaning couple realise this is their stop, frantically gathering bags. There is an exchange of bodies, old for new, and a silent negotiation over seat distribution. Do women still deserve seats more than men? And it jolts three times into movement. In front of her, he sits down.
***
Tiny. Meaningless. Hiss, suck. She had swung it back around, fast again, but with a hard tug frozen it an inch from closing. Then with careful precision eased it slowly back into place.
And then she was tired of the fridge door.
Colour, the colour outside of her and inside the world, was two dimensional. It existed only to shade the surface of an object, bouncing the pre-selected elements of the spectrum into the open eyes and closed minds of humanity. It was a party decoration, tacky and temporary.
Colour inside her was at least three dimensional, and she was currently working on a hypothesis that it might possess four. The reds that washed through her possessed depth, shape, age. She could reach into them, let them run through her mind’s fingers, feel them swell and subside. They were powerful.
Her eyes recognised an apple on the counter. It lifted. It vibrated. It exploded.