PURE FICTION
Someone Else’s Peepers: A Christmas Story
Part 1 of 2 in a story of Holiday cheer and everyday fear
In a snowy town, maybe just miles from your own, Ilyana anxiously sits with bated breath, focused on the cold steel pressed against her temple.
“I’m almost through the first layer Ms. Shaffer.” says the voice of a man she’s never seen. His tone is all too familiar. Ilyana never forgets a voice, not since the accident that left her hurdling down a path that landed her here in this most historic of moments. “It’s snowing right now Ms. Shaffer. How long has it been since you’ve seen the snow?” he says with nervous excitement in his voice.
“It’s been 12 years,” she said, unable to hold the quiver from sneaking into her own voice. Then, the warm yet cool feeling of blood rushing to her face met wind and fresh air-kissed skin that’s been deprived of its touch for too long. Pieces of the cloth wrapped around her head hit her shoulders and fell to her lap. The irony of the literal burden relieved from her shoulders is not lost on her, but the moment is too sweet to care. The time has almost come to open her eyes and truly see for the first time in over a decade.
Next to go are what she’d always imagined were stickers covering her eyes. On her most cheerful of days, she’d imagine that they were the smiley-face ones that doctors would give her as a child. The thought made for some quite awkward chuckles in the middle of serious conversations over the past few months. Ilyana almost leaps off the table at the almost painful red light shining through her eyelids.
Next, the surgeon applies some sort of goo to her eyes with a soft pad, washing away any residue remaining from her eye stickers. The long and silent pause that followed let her know that the moment is here. Just in time for Christmas.
“It’s time to open your eyes Ms. Shaffer.” said the doctor. “Let’s see how they do.”
“Thanks again for letting me stay here while I recover Fran,” says Ilyana, taking a large gram cracker and applying generous amounts of frosting to one side. She places it on the roof of what was supposed to be a gingerbread house. It’s become more of a seaside gingerbread shanty the more they drank.
“Mmm, It’s no big deal girl,” Fran said suckling on a peppermint in her mouth. “I haven’t seen you since college and theirs no reason for you to move all the way out here to be close to your doctor. I’m sure you’re already under a lot of stress as it is.”
“Shit yea I am.” Ilyana felt herself give in to nervous laughter. “Any advice?”
“Yea, mmph… stop watching the news.” Fran spits the remainder of the peppermint onto her side of the gingerbread shanty. Surprisingly, it sort of forms a chimney for the shack, sitting perfectly on the top. Fran continued. “Constantly hearing about your people that hate you will just make you more paranoid.”
Ilyana, ever so dramatic in her exasperation, gave Fran a damning look. “Any actually good advice?”
“Welp,” Fran said, cracking open a beer with her baby Jesus in a manger bottle opener and handing it to Ilyana. “Ask yourself what would baby Jesus do, and have a bottle.”
Ilyana stared at the shit-eating grin her friend always made at the worst jokes and couldn’t help but laugh. “He’s the reason for the season,” Ilyana said and took a sip.
“So,” said Fran. “Do they feel like, you know, your old eyes?”
“What?”
“You know, like, are they like more…shifty?”
“ I don’t know, do your new lips feel more shifty?”
“ Touche,” Fran said with a smile.
For a moment Ilyana was able to forget her situation. Here, with the snow falling and Christmas just days away, she could become lost in the moment drinking with her old friend, the way things used to be. The way they should be. Then, the news anchor reminded her of reality from across the room.
“ We have an update on the controversial story developing about Ilyana Shaffer; the middle-aged woman who is the recipient of a fairly new surgery that transplants one’s eyes to another.” A none-too-flattering picture of Ilyana appeared on the top corner of the screen.
“While we’ve had this technology for some time, this case comes after a new law passed that allows the removal of non-vital organs from inmates serving a life sentence without consent. Since this change, protests around the nation have sprung up denouncing her eyes, stating that this is a breach of the constitution and the beginning of a dark path. Supporters of the bill will hold a press event tomorrow evening where Ms. Shaffer herself will give a speech on the matter, after which there will be time for several questions.”
Immediately following the update was frame after frame of protesters, chanting against her right to see. They held up signs calling her a thief, immoral, and even in some cases a witch. It made her blood boil. It just wouldn’t stop.
These people. They don’t really care about some death row inmate that got life for murdering some girl. They’re just scared it’s going to happen to them. Well if they’d stay out of trouble they wouldn’t have to worry about it. Ilyana couldn’t take it anymore. She reached for the remote, taking it and pointing it at the screen to give the power button a strong squeeze. When the remote crumbled in her hand she sat there stunned.
Fran began to chuckle. “ Hey what did those crackers do to you?”
Ilyana looked down at her hand. Pieces of gram cracker flecked away, hitting the floor. “I…I thought it was the remote”, She said distantly.
“Ha, you must have,” Fran said, “ You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” Ilyana looked over at Fran, puzzled. “Yea, I even saw you eating ravioli with a knife instead of a fork yesterday.”
“What?” Ilyana laughed. “No, I didn’t.”
“It’s true,” she said giggling. “I thought you must have been on some good shit the doc gave you.” Ilyana felt light-headed. This was all so bizarre. She stood and staggered toward the steps. Fran gave a silent stare, watching her friend ascend to the second floor.
“You okay?” she said.
“…I need a nap.”
“While there are without a doubt a few moral questions regarding the restoration of someone’s sight through these unconventional means, I implore you to try and open your own eyes to the miracle that I myself have witnessed.”
Ilyana paces the floor of a backstage green room practicing her speech. She can already hear the jeering that comes from the crowd of onlookers, here to see the woman that stole someone’s eyes. Her anxiety grows with every minute of waiting for the green room phone to ring. They promised they’ll let her know if it’s even safe to come out.
Ilyana takes a moment to calm herself and let the reality of what’s happening sink in. She’s a part of history now. The very first recipient of a donation that changes the course of the future and they have her in this messy room full of papers, folders, half-opened drawers, and pens scattered as far as the eye can see. Midway through her mental rant, Fran walks through the door.
“Hey girl, okay back here?”
“I’ll be okay when this is all over,” Ilyana said.
“Just relaaax. Be natural. All those people out there are just paranoid.”
“All?”
Fran smirked. “It doesn’t matter how many there are. Only that you were able to regain a little happiness in this effed-up world. That asshole was serving a life sentence with no chance of an appeal. If you ask me, he repaid some of his debt to society with his peepers.” She looked up at Ilyana. “I mean yours, now.”
“Yea. I wouldn’t be upset if they knocked a few years off of his sentence for it.” Ilyana said glumly.
“Well if you’re so sympathetic you can always give them back,” Fran said sashaying over to her.
Ilyana couldn’t help but have a laugh. “This isn’t the time for Jo — ”
She’s cut off by the sudden ringing of a nearby phone. Ilyana’s anxiety floods back to her chest as she snatches the phone from the desk and quickly holds it to her ear, eager to know how the people are reacting. As soon as she’s about to say hello, Fran grips her arm pulling it away from her head.
Fran has gone pale. She wears a look on her face Ilyana hasn’t seen since she was flung off of a mechanical bull and into a wall some 15 years ago. If that wasn’t odd enough, something happens that catches her off guard. Another ring, and another. Then a sharp pain shoots through the right side of her head.
“Holy shit!” Fran said. Then she runs to the door and begins to yell for help. As Ilyana pulls her hand further away from her head she tracks down the phone on the other side of the room ringing still. As she ponders the oddity, she looks down at her hand and sees the stapler she is holding. Not a small one either. One of the thicker ones with staples that are closer in resemblance to large bolts.
Warm. The right side of her head feels so warm and the feeling is spreading down to her chest. Panic sets in. Suddenly it’s as if the room is tilted. Her breath struggles to escape her throat. Her knees begin to fail, and right before she hits the ground she manages to look up into a nearby mirror and catch the gleaming metal object protruding from a bloody river on the side of her head. Then, the blackness takes her.
