literature

FFM 2014, July 27 - Eyes

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Rodney had first noticed them while celebrating with the local whore, Brianne, down at Frog End, using up  his ill-gotten gains in the best way he knew. They had just suddenly appeared on the bedside table: a pair of azure blue eyes, staring accusingly at him. Rodney recognized them: the problem was, the last time he’d seen them, they had been attached to a handsome young man on a journey that had, unfortunately for him, taken him past Rodney’s hiding place.

After that day, they started following him everywhere, always looking – from on top of branches, rocks, fence posts. When he shat in the woods, when he ate, when he slept, and when he stalked his next victim.

He tried trapping them, like he did hares, but they wouldn’t bite. He tried his hand at a sling, but somehow the rocks always missed. He considered asking someone to help, maybe to corral them somehow, but how would he explain it? Everyone in the village would know the eyes, and everyone who helped him would talk about it after: they were not forgettable eyes.

“Are you ghosts? Is that it? Do you want to get back to your master?” He tried that, but all that happened was that two pairs of eyes stared at the stripped corpse of the adventurer…sans eyes. For once, though, the eyes stared at something else than him, albeit briefly. “You know I hadn’t meant to kill ‘im, it’s just that swords make me nervous.” Rodney had bashed him a bit too hard in the back of the head, apparently. The eyes weren’t swayed.

When the eyes began to actively disrupt his outlaw activities, that was when he knew he had been cursed. That was the only explanation. Some kind of evil curse. He took the last of the money he had pilfered from the hero’s purse, and went on his own adventure: seeking the Hedge Hag, who would know.

Bizarrely, the eyes seemed to like travelling. As he sat by the camp fire – still not daring to enter a village – the eyes glinting out of the dark were less hostile. “Ya fuckers like travelling huh?” He spat at one, and it skittered off, only to return almost immediately. “Figures, I guess. Me – I like to stay in one spot, where I’m comfortable. All this walking is making my calves chafe and…”

Rodney stopped when he realized he was talking to the eyes. And the eyes seemed to be listening.

It took him two weeks to reach the Hedge Hag, and by the time he stepped across the threshold of her hovel, the eyes were jumping comfortably at his heels. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but something about the travelling, the nights by the campfire, the lack of other human contact, and the odd warmth and humour that the disembodied eyes could express had made him put his guard down. As far as travelling companions went, they sure were better than many he’d had.

The Hedge Hag looked up from her broth, her one eye wandering from Rodney to the two eyes at his feet. It was difficult to tell what her expression was, what with all the wrinkles and the deep cowl and all that, but Rodney thought it might be glee.

“Ohohoh, I’d recognize those eyes anywhere! Sir Wain, you arrive at last!”

Rodney, taken a bit by surprise, stammered out: “Y…you know them? I mean, him?”

“Oh yes, yes! He was on a quest, coming this way! Very important – Kingdom saving, princess rescuing, all that.” The old hag shambled up to Rodney, poking at an eye with her stick. It hopped up on the stick and stuck to it affectionately.

“Oh.” Rodney said, deflated. “So…what now?”

“The quest must go on, my dear fellow – like I said, very important.” The old hag went back to her broth, carefully putting the stick with the eye aside before adding a last newt’s tail to the mixture.

“Whoa, whoa, I’m not going on any adventures. I’m just a …simple man. I just want to get rid of these damned hanger-ons.” Rodney protested. He could feel the azure-blue eyes on him, looking disappointed. For perhaps the first time in his life, Rodney wondered if he didn’t have a responsibility to someone else than himself.

The Hedge Hag smiled with her toothless gum, and scooped up a cupful of her broth. “Of course, that’s why you came here. Drink this, and your worries will be over.” She handed him the steaming cup.

“They’ll stop following me around?” Rodney asked, holding the foul-stenching liquid. “I’ll be free to go home?”

“Yes, yes.” The Hedge Hag smiled. Rodney didn’t think more of it – after all, this was what Hedge Witches did.

After Rodney had fallen asleep from the effects of the concoction, the Hedge Hag went to work. The two azure-blue eyes of Sir Wain watched as she carved Rodney’s eyes out and put them in a jar. Afterwards, she carefully replaced them with the two blue ones. They blinked their eyelids, and the Hedge Hag made a gleeful sound.

Later, when Rodney woke up to the smudgy surface of the inside of the jar, his body had already walked off.

“Don’t worry.” The Hedge Hag said, placing the jar of Rodney’s eyes on a high shelf. “He promised he’d come back with your body once he’s done with his quest. Said he owes you. Very important, after all.”

Rodney couldn’t answer, because Rodney was now just a pair of eyes.

FFM for July 27, 2014. Rest of entries: www.deviantart.com/art/FFM-Lin…

Used the following prompt: The eyes follow me. Literally. -ilyilaice

I don't know if this is serious or a funny :P End-of-FFM blues!
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NamelessShe's avatar
:D Very cool. Serious or funny, it turned out wonderful.