Eyes That Remember

It began, as it always did, with the sour-lit hallway, long as sin, echoing like a conch shell vomited from the Gulf. A hospital corridor, old and fogged-up like a bathroom mirror. Walls green as pond scum. Air smelling sharp with bleach and rust. Lights blinking like they were thinking about going out. Coleman Bourque, just eight years old, held on to his mama’s hand.

At least he was sure it was his mama’s.

Her face never showed right. It was always smudged, like the edge of a cloud. He could feel her hand, though—soft, careful, her pinky twitching like it had a rhythm of its own. But her head stayed veiled in shadows.

Unease crawled up little Coleman’s spindly frame. Momma promised me some ice cream, he thought. Said it would do the pain behind my eyeballs some good, but only if I be brave. He tried to talk himself into calm but couldn’t, not for lack of trying. Oddly, he felt his thoughts broadcasted along the lone hallway and his veiled mother shushed him. He wanted nothing more than to be in the ice cream parlour, the one momma promised him, the one where even pleasant-faced white folk sometimes ate. He wasn’t hungry but wanted to be anywhere else than this liminal ward, pain or no pain.

The hallway stretched out far too long. The floor was checkerboard tiles, but the colors were all mixed up, running like cheap water color in the rain. Mostly colored folk sat slumped in sorry-looking metal chairs along the wall, hushed and off-kilter. Coleman did all he could to look up, but his chest tingled a bit because he knew what he would see. Their patients’ faces had gone runny, like dripping eggs — somehow not meant for this world or the next. Young Coleman thought their faces didn’t line up the way God made them. Eyes too far apart, ears sinking low like wet clay, and mouths curling up like they’d heard a joke meant for someone else.

He squeezed his mama’s hand. His eyes burned, the old way they used to—hot and deep, like someone had lit a match behind them. That ache had been with him a long time.

“Almost there, baby,” Mama said, but her voice came slow and fuzzy, like it was dialling in from a fuzzy radio signal. “Doctor gonna fix you right up, mm-hm.”

“A-and afterwards, we going to get some ice cream, yeah mama?”

He looked up towards his mother’s face, his vision fading.

“Mama?”

“Yes honey, we gonna fix you up with ice cream. Two big scoops,” she answered after an awkward pause, long enough to tempt him to listen deeply. How could he explain that he began to doubt his mother held his hand? He felt in his troubled heart as if the air had compressed. He wouldn’t let go of her hand for the life of him.

Then there, at the end of the hall waited the clinic room.

“Coleman,” said his mother, her tone flat.

“Yes’m?”

“It’s time. Now be a brave boy and think ice cream!” Her last few words bounced on a giggle making the boy wince. He hardly knew what he was doing and felt mama’s delicate hands flick his off. The brusque gesture hit more than a swat to the face when he was naught. He felt drenched in sweat although his skin stayed dry. A tide of fear washed over his thin frame.

Inside the clinic, Coleman made out a cracked patient's recliner, the kind that hissed when you sat. A tray of shiny metal tools glinted like fish-filleting knives. And of course, the fat Cajun medicine man himself, Dr. Broussard.

“Well now, Cole-man,” said Broussard in his sweet, sticky drawl. His lips were full and greasy like freshly sliced andouille. His smile was too wide for his fleshy, pink head.

“Let’s have us a peek at them pretty eyes, okay?”

He tapped the chair.

Coleman didn’t move.

“Ain’t no need to be nervous, cher. Your mama tell me you got a voice like a mockingbird, idd'n that right?”

“Yessir.”

“Well don’t you yessir me!” said the meaty doctor, feigning offence.

“I mean, yes doctor.” And as Coleman corrected himself, or believing he had to in that moment, Broussard chortled. But it was not a pleasant belly laugh and Coleman was unsure if he were a good man, much less a good doctor.

“Oh come on, you look like you done seen a ghost. You know I’m jesting. Now I know you sing like a bird at choir. Come on up!”

He lifted Coleman onto the chair with amazing strength. The room tilted and swayed like a porch swing in storm wind.

He leaned in closer, and Coleman swore he reeked of sausage or grease.

“Tell me son, what’s been goin’ on in them eyeballs?”

Coleman opened his mouth but couldn’t get the words out. His tongue felt thick. The smell of the room grew stronger—iodine and something else, no, not Broussard, but something old and evil-smelling. Mama had long faded away from Coleman’s periphery.

Dr. Broussard turned away, rustling in a drawer. Coleman peeked at the tray. Long silver scissors. A scalpel that caught the cruel light and threw it back.

“Ma,” he whispered, but he felt his voice faint, rattling in his throat.

Somewhere far away, like through water she said, “Let the doctor do his work, baby.”

“Ma,” a little louder this time.

“Naw, what was we saying about you in the choir, son? Go on, sing for me again,” said Broussard, still facing the wall of the inner clinic room. “That sweet little voice callin’ out for his momma, curse his heart.”

Coleman’s breath caught. He tried to sit up, but the chair had arms sinking down like tree roots.

“I’m sorry, what you say?”

Then Broussard turned.

“I said curse your heart,” uttered the doctor.

His face had shifted. His grin stretched too far. And his eyes—his eyes were Coleman’s. Burnt. Swollen. Shining with unholy intensity.

“Well now,” Broussard said, lifting the scalpel like it was a spoon, “Guess we gonna have to remove them eyeballs, boy!”

“MAMA!”

But it wasn’t a sound that came from his throat. It came from behind his eyes, like a door had burst open.

Then—

Darkness.

Then his skin crawled or rather something crawled across him.

He woke up all at once, gasping like he’d been drowning, his skin slick with sweat.

A cockroach dashed across his chest and vanished into a crack in the floorboards.

Coleman’s room was black, except for a few crooked blades of sunlight pushing through the bent Venetian. Those grimy slats hadn’t shut proper in years.

He lay still. His heart thumped. The dream had slipped away, but its weight lingered. As he was waking, he felt his thoughts expanding, making sense of a memory feverishly intertwined with phantasms. It was all so gripping, so senseless. The pain behind his eyes stirred up again like a mad hornet in a bottle.

He sat up.

His shotgun shack groaned—wood swelling, pipes clinking like spoons in a glass. The air smelled of mildew, cold coffee, and rot trying to pretend it was perfume. Pizza boxes lay where they’d been left, crusted with grease while a few beer cans rolled when the fan kicked up.

Coleman rose. Ashy feet to damp floor. He didn’t need light. Didn’t pay for it anyway. What would he use it for? He was blind. Had been. Still was.

He walked to the sink in the corner, felt for the familiar rusted faucet, and splashed water on his face. The smell of hard water greeted his nose.

And there again, pulsed that pain lancing through his right eye. Sharp and sudden.

He hissed and held the edge of the sink.

Then, like some part of him wanted to be fooled, he turned toward the mirror.

The glass was warped. The backing peeled in corners like old wallpaper. It showed shapes more than faces. But there he was.

Sweat on his brow. Skin dark as Mississippi clay. Blending into the room like he’d been poured into it. His shape didn’t look right. The mirror couldn’t decide where he ended.

He touched his eyelids. Still sealed shut.

“Lord,” he deflated.

Then again, soft but clear, “Lord have mercy.”

The mirror stayed quiet.

And so did the house. Same as always. He craved the sunlight — craved it more than he dreaded Broussard, still waiting for him after all these years.