When You Look Into My Eyes

Jessie and I are soulmates, as they say; read each other like a book. She affectionately calls me Billy and we are rarely out of each other’s sight. We get along famously, apart from a rare disagreement, usually when Jess feels I have not quite met her expectations. In fact, the incident I am about to report is one of those times. On this occasion, my conduct was certainly less than prudent – but I must protest. My actions were purely instinctual – and in this day and age, I wonder if that isn’t a perfectly valid way to behave.

 The morning began uneventfully with the two of us taking our usual walk around the park, our ‘constitutional’, as Jess likes to put it. Neither of us have been particularly well of late. She has a cold, and I am recovering from a stomach upset, the result of something unwisely consumed. In the park we almost always follow the well-kept central avenue that passes under a canopy of enormous trees, before veering left towards the sports oval which we like to circumnavigate on the way back to the house.

But today we were delayed because Jessie had need of the women’s public toilets – which left me loitering disconcertingly outside. Obliged to stand outside and wait, I distracted myself by feigning some interest in the surroundings. I noticed a delightful little row of recently planted shrubs along the perimeter of an adjacent walkway. Beneath them, a half-dozen small, grey birds were scavenging in the dust, and they suddenly took flight as a child on a three-wheeled cycle trundled by.

           My eye turned to a solitary female lingering some distance away between two thickly foliaged trees. Youngish and about my height, I was surprised to note that she appeared to be staring at me. Our eyes met briefly before she abruptly turned and walked off at a rather brisk pace towards the far side of the park. Curious to see where she was going, I moved hastily to the other end of the amenities building and observed her poised a second time. Again, she seemed to be looking back at me. A moment later, she walked off once more.

For whatever reason, I found myself following, and as her pace hastened, so did mine, until we were both almost running. What was I doing? What did I expect? Seen in retrospect, I cannot say it was the most judicious of decisions, a knee-jerk reaction, as they say, yet I found myself drawn on as if some vital destiny awaited. Was she in need of something from me?

Just then, Jessie emerged from the rest rooms and shouted after me, ‘Bill! Where are you going?’ I distinctly heard her, I cannot deny it, yet for whatever reason, I continued on until I saw my subject reach the far edge of the park. Just then she looked back a third time, before hurrying across the wide street towards the houses on the other side. That sudden burst across a busy street startled me; a flagrant and uncompromising act that had the dynamic effect of propelling me on.

Call me reckless, but without further thought, I too crossed the busy road, carefully avoiding the motorists – even though one belligerent fellow felt obliged to blast his horn. By now, my inveigler had vanished, and it was only when my eyes fell upon an open gate still swinging that I continued my ineluctable pursuit. Across a front yard, past two glazed panels on the face of the house, I came upon a narrow space between the building and a side fence. It was into this dark recess that I now realised I would have to venture. At this point my resolve faltered – and yet I felt committed to some objective unforeseen, no doubt drawn on by her beckoning looks in the park.

At the end of the narrow corridor, I vacillated again, before stepping cautiously out into the sunlight. The entire backyard was carpeted with grass, in fact clipped so short that it approached the feel of carpet, and it was upon this that my subject was now casually sitting. As soon as she saw me, she reclined onto that carefully manicured lawn which prompted me to discretely approach her, stopping just short of her recumbent form. I lay down beside her, and we remained this way for some minutes, thoroughly content with each other’s company.

Sometimes that is all one requires, the frank and undisguised proximity of another. In my opinion, it seems a malaise of our current age that many may have lost this ordinary ability to relate, to genuinely recognise and value the presence of others. I see people on the street, detached, disillusioned, lonely, trapped within their own narcissistic realm, making contact via some remote device connected to digital media, when all they really need is the unmitigated experience of a tactile, trusting engagement with another.

As we lay side-by-side, we soon became aware of someone approaching along the same side alley. Yet still we did not move, and I only turned my head at the very last moment when Jessie approached.

‘Billy!’ she shrieked, her high-pitched tone suffused with fear and disappointment. She stepped in and unceremoniously snapped the lead onto my collar, hauling me away. ‘Bad boy!’ she added gruffly, and yet no doubt, she was really only interested in my welfare. This concern seems to cross all barriers, a sign we are all connected, Jess, me – and you. It might be intuitive, it might be irrational, but when anyone looks into my eyes, I sense some vital bond between us.

So it is with my new acquaintance in the park, an attachment that goes much deeper than mere appearances, credentials, pedigree. If we are all individual, much more of us is the same, and perhaps all we need is the courage to connect, to embrace our affinities, our kinship. We are not alone. One day I expect to meet my friend in the park again, and it will be as if we were never apart.