Pale Blue Eyes
Virginia Ewing (University Of Melbourne, Australia)
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“Your eye is fuckin’ weird, isn’t it?” says the guy at the bus station as I am giving him a light. I open my mouth; I shut it again. I want to say, it’s called Acquired Heterochromia Iridum. I want to say, I am unique and beautiful. I want to say, David Bowie’s got one; he got his in a fight. I want to say, it’s been that way since I was a baby. I want to say, it still hurts, what with the light and all. I want to say, yours aren’t that great either. I want to say, the pale blue one is from my mother, Swedish you know; I still remember her blue eyes framed against the doorway, taking their last look before she walked out on us. I want to say, an old man in a train once talked to me all the way home, staring at it, his hand in his pocket under his winter coat. I want to say, my ex was a veterinary student, who didn’t believe it; sometimes, when I was lying naked beside him, empty, my head on his chest in his dimly lit room, he would shine a little torch in it, to see if it’d react. I want to say, another ex used to sing that Velvet Underground song at me; I had them play it at my mother’s funeral on an old cassette I taped off the radio; and I cried, even though that was the first time I learned her first name. I want to say, I don’t have to talk to you, you know; I don’t have to put up with this. I want to say, my father flicked a lit match in my bassinet because I wouldn’t stop crying and it burnt my pupil, so now it can’t constrict. Thanks for asking. I want to say, one flick of my wrist and I could give you one of your own.I open my mouth; I shut it again. I mutter, “Yeah…”
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Virginia Greaves is completing Honours in Creative Arts at the University of Melbourne. When not foraging amidst library stacks, she writes copy and fights to change the world one errant apostrophe at a time.
