Dispatches from the Fury Road: Universal Eye

On the weekend I attended a birthday party.

I arrived late after a gig and much to my disappointment realised I didn’t know many people outside of the hosts. My stomach rumbled so like a ninja I slipped my way to the table that presented a plethora of tasty snacks. I started with a brownie and within seconds of gulping the last bite, I felt like I had stacked on enough weight that I could play linebacker in the NFL. Fearing that I might collapse onto the floor due to the density of the brownie in my stomach, I casually made my way to the lounge where I could sit and digest in peace. After a while a young girl in her mid-to-late twenties sat next to me and handed me her phone.

“What do you think that is?” she asked. I held the phone up and had a look at the image.

“It’s a scan of the inside of an eye,” I replied. I tapped the side of my glasses and said, “I have these taken all the time.”

“Almost correct. It’s a scan of the inside of MY eye,” she said triumphantly. “What else do you see?”

I held the phone up again and studied it closely.

“I see a vast nebula painted in red and green hues that emanate from the stars in the sky. In the middle I see a sun that burns brightly and defiantly against the forces of a black hole that is not only stealing the light but also the worlds around it. I see vast tendrils of Hawking radiation shooting out into a cold and indifferent universe. I’m in awe that we could be witnessing an incredible event that occurred before our planet was infected with the disease of people; before humans even thought to look up at the sky and wonder about their place in the cosmos.”

She nodded.

“Yep, I see that,” she said. She took the phone from my hand and slipped it into the pocket of her blue-denim jeans. “Maybe black holes are the pupils of unimaginable gods looking down at us like the way we look at Tardigrades trapped on a slide? That’s why nothing can escape them. Nothing can escape what a giant eye can see.”

I nodded my head to the cadence of her voice.

“Yep, I see that too.”

I turned to face her and in turn she swivelled to face me. Her eyes were hazel without a hint of red.

“I have a very important question for you,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask?”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you have one of those brownies over there?”

Her pupils dilated.

“Yes I did.”

“Hmmmm, that’s what I thought,” I replied as the wave of an imaginary ocean came crashing down on my frontal lobes. “They really should have put up a little sign warning us about the brownies.”

“In their defence, I think they did say something at the start of the evening.”

I rubbed the back of my hand across my beard and felt a thousand bristles exfoliate my skin.

“Then that is on me,” I said as I stood up. “You’ll have to excuse me but I have roughly seven-minutes to order a ride share before I suddenly go nigh-nighs. It was lovely to meet you and your eye.”

She waved from the comfort of the lounge. I watched as she melted into the plush brown leather like a chameleon who’d finally found the perfect spot to chill.

“The pleasure was all mine,” she said.

Twenty nine minutes later I was in bed asleep.

I never did catch her name.

Justin Hamilton

5th of March, 2021

Surry Hills