Black Eyes #3

hi! So, 'Black Eyes #2' is still in the green room, so if you have the time(or if you want this installment to make sense), check that one out too. 

overlapping from part 2..:

The man draws himself up, crossing his arms over his chest, and chuckles, cruelly this time. “Not givin’ you anything, kid.” Then in a sudden, remarkably fast movement for one inhabiting such a large body, he flicks a large wind chime in the boy’s face. “And I’m no ‘sir’ to you.”

Before the second pipe in the scale crashes against his nose and,the boy opens his eyes wide, wide. Against his conscious will, in reflex. And the man lets out a scream.

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The boy shuts them tight again and feigns ignorance at the vendor’s reaction.“Sir, stop yelling. Has a demon gotten into you?” He puts a hand to his ear. “Please stop it. You’re scaring the customers away.”

The man laughs highly, manically, and for too long before saying. “I’m the damned demon to you, huh!”

“It’s an expression,” the boy says, stiffly.

“Didn’t know demons could have a sense of humor,” the large man spat, and his grin was like a puppet’s, painfully stretched out across his face. “Man, you’re just a freak in every single way, aren’ ’cha?”

And at that, the boy breaks. Kicks off his shoes into the pavement and runs, through the middle of the street, tripping over the cobblestones, over and over, but barely slowing.

He hears a voice behind him.

“What’s your name, black-eyed boy? What’s your name, so I kin curse ya?!” The rough, leering voice of the vendor follows him and echoes in his head, reverberates through it, as if it were a mosquito caught in his ear taking out its own trapped feelings on him.

He runs for a long time, hours maybe, until he knows his legs will give out under him if he goes on.

It’s almost noon when he stops at a clearing, panting.

It’s an abandoned area of the city, perhaps the square of a neighborhood once- the cobblestone is evenly spaced, and the larger part of the low buildings have slate shingles and brick roofs. In many of the structures, there are large rectangular holes where glass windows had been before they were smashed. Weeds grow from every crack.

He heads to a crude stone fountain in the middle of the square, and sits at its base. Puts his head in his hands, and shudders, letting his world go dark. His shoulders shake-up, down, but under his fingers there is no dampness, no shine. Just dull, black eyes that might as well be marbles for all their use to him.

Evil marbles.

Black eyes. No pupil, no white. No tears, even.

Curses, curses.

And what’s your name, black-eyed boy? What’s your name so I can curse you?

“Hi.” A voice sounds behind him and he panics, slamming a hand against the ground so hard he can hear his joints crack.

The young girl is out of place. He can tell that immediately, because instead of the rasp that accompanies the voices of so many of the inhabitants of city, the ones breathing in the smoke all their lives, the sound the girl makes is clear and high-

“Hi.” She says again. “Your feet are blue.”

She’s wearing a heavy coat and laced leather boots and a hat. A big, big hat.

The boy blinks and hesitates, too long.

“Sorry,” he replies finally. “You scared me.”

“It’s okay. You scare me too.”

“You and the rest of the world,” He tells her, and this time, he doesn’t lie. He looks straight at her. “Go away, or I’ll… curse you. Apparently.”

To his own astonishment, the little girl breaks into a high, clear peal of laughter. “You look funny. Your feet are blue- and your eyes are black. And your nose is red.” She pauses for a breath. “And so is everything else, red, red, red…” She sings the last part gaily, as if it were a nursery rhyme. “Nothing is the right color.”

“Yeah,” he says. He looks down at his feet, suddenly self conscious. Through the pale fog obstructing his vision, he realizes she is right- his feet are blue.

“You look scary,” the little stranger says. “You’re bleeding everywhere.”

“Oh,” he answers dully. “Are the cuts deep?”

The girl plops down besides him at the base of the fountain without invitation. “I don’t know. I’m ten. You’re big. Why don’t you figure it out?”

“Can’t.” he says. “Um, see.” He waves a hand in front of his eyes, demonstrating.

She giggles again. “Yes, you can. You just looked at your feet. You can see those. And you looked at me!”

“Well,” he says. “I can’t see.”

“Okay, funny boy,” she replies happily. She picks a weed from a crack in the stone, and blows the loose seeds of it from it’s core in one long breath. He can’t see those seeds when they’re floating-disconnected.

“I wish there was some water in this fountain,” she comments. “There isn’t a point in having a fountain without any water in it.”

“There used to be water in it,” he says. “But nobody is here anymore. So the water is gone.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes. It is.”

They sit in silence for a while, the girl playing with her flower stem, and the boy staring blankly in front of him, watching the blurred browns and greys and the white of the sky, and the occasional dark suggestion of a bird.

He finally asks her, still facing the alley from which he came-“Why aren’t you scared of me?”

The little girl breaks the head of her dandelion with small, grubby fingers and lets it fall between two cobblestones, and turns to look at him. “I am scared of you,” she insists. “You look funny. And you’re bleeding everywhere. But you’re nice too, I think. And this place isn’t your home. Just like me.”

“Oh,” he said.

And then, “Aren’t you scared of my eyes? They’re black. There are demons in them.” In me.

She smiles - he can feel it. “They look just like the ... sky at home. The sky looks kind of funny when it’s in a person, but it still makes me happy. I miss home.”

And he waits again- too long-before saying,“Me too.” 

hope you liked part 3. Thanks for reading!