Short Form Horror No.2 - Dead Man's Eyes.
My grandfather owns a pair of dead man’s eyes. I’ve seen them sitting on his mantelpiece, staring blankly forward, above my head. He got them in the war, he says. A French soldier in a foxhole gave them to him as a gift, said they were lucky, could tell him what to see. He said the French soldier bled out and died ten minutes later. One time, one of the nights that my mom was sleeping off a binge and I was sent to my Grandfather's house, I saw my him put the eyes on; the left eye over his left eye, the right eye over his right eye. He settled back into his chair after putting them on and leaned way back, staring at the ceiling, breathing in a way that was different. I watched him like that for a long time. The dead man's eyes are blue. A muddy blue like a marsh. My Grandfather's eyes are deep brown. The blue eyes saw me that night, they fixed on me as I retreated back up the stairs, before settling back on the ceiling. Briefly, I heard my Grandfather speak in another language, then respond in his own, then my door closed.
Now deep brown eyes stare up at me from my lightly cupped hand, as I stand where my Grandfather lays dead and empty in the same chair he always sat in, in the chair where I knew that he put those dead man’s eyes on almost every night. He knew he would die soon, a stroke maybe, or a heart attack, it didn’t really matter but my Grandfather knew it would happen soon. That’s when he grabbed my wrist as I was giving him water, told me to look him in the eyes, the same deep brown eyes that I had known for so long, and he told me a story. The same story about the French soldier who died, but different. The blue eyes belonged to the French soldier. The French soldier who bled out as my Grandfather carved his eyes out with his boot knife, careful not to nick the corneas. He was going to die anyway he said bluntly as I recoiled, pulling my wrist out of his veiny grip. Shrapnel in the French soldier’s spine, he said. he’d been in that foxhole for days, waiting to die. He grabbed at me again as I looked on at the morbid image of the eyes on the shelf, staring less blankly than I had realized before. He pulled me close his breath invading my nose and mouth as he whispered. He told me then that he was going to die. it was important that I take those eyes off of the shelf before it happened, put them on him like he had done so many times before, or not like that really, put them in him this time, carve out his eyes just like he had done, careful not to nick the corneas at all, replace those brown eyes with the marsh blue ones. Do it, son, he says. Please.
I wash my Grandfather’s face gently with a cloth, less blood came out of it than I would have expected. Those marsh blue eyes stare out at me from his face like they did that night when I was young. Nothing happens for a long time. A breath, a different breath from deep in my Grandfather’s chest and I shudder back as my Grandfather retches forward. He stands, stretches, looks at me with eyes that know me that I do not know the same, smiles lightly, says something in that other language, taps the side of his nose twice with his right index finger, and walks out the door. I stand there, shaking, for a long time.
I never saw my Grandfather again, but I hear him at night while my children sleep when I put the deep brown eyes on my shelf over my hazel ones, the left eye over my left eye, the right eye over my right eye, lean way back in my chair, stare at the ceiling and talk late into the night, breathing different.