Like two huge puddles, her eyes shone with flowing water. I could see green and black specks bunched in a circle near the middle of both puddles. There was a white slab of light in which I could see myself, sitting there smugly on a band of pure gold.
I imagined myself drowning in those eyes. They looked so deep, as though I would fall forever. All eyes are different, just as all lakes are different as well. I noticed a piece of seaweed float to the surface, and I noticed that there was a sandbar near the edge of one eye.
The eyes started to move up and down in a slow procession. If I was not mute towards human speech, I imagine that they would have been speaking. A salt filled droplet escaped from the pond and sailed away. The shining eyes finally drew away from my face and drifted upwards towards the eyes of another.
Four eyes met and then drifted past one another in an invisible embrace. I was slowly lifted off my black velvet case and placed in a comfortable tight spot.
I traveled with the green eyes for many months. The eyes had ceased sprouting water, but every time they looked at me they widened with pride.
I remember gazing out at twenty eyes, all of them focused on me. I noticed dark brown eyes narrowed in dislike. Unlike the green eyes, these eyes seemed shallow, as though the bottom of the lake- the part filled with mud, had risen out.
The rest of the eyes staring up at me looked kind enough. There was a pair of eyes that housed tiny crow’s feet on either side. They looked so pleased and proud. They crinkled at the sight of my beauty. As hard as I tried, I could not stop studying the menacing brown eyes.
I tried to amuse myself with the pair of electric blue eyes which were not the same size, and the two pairs of violet eyes that were almost identical. There was a pair of eyes that changed colors as the light hit them differently. Each pair of eyes had a story, but the dark pair of eyes entranced me, because they seemed to possess a book.
That night was one of the best nights of my life. Instead of the humans pressing their noses up against my glass, they were laughing and stroking my crevices. They adored me and I adored them.
My novelty seemed to wear off after a while. Within months, attention was no longer drawn to me. I could still see the human’s eyes, but they no longer wanted to see me. Even the two green puddles, the ones who I thought had cared for me, avoided my gaze.
I was put into a dark box for many years. I was alone in that box, for these eyes owned only one piece of jewelry.
In an act of desperation the green eyes opened the box one late night. I was horrified at what had become of those once gorgeous ponds. The ponds had sunken in, as though they had become swamps, and they had dried up. There was no ripple in this pond. The seaweed had packed up and left. I noticed that mud and sand had developed around one of the eyes.
I saw blunt resentment in those eyes. I was a reminder of their past, of what they could have had. Their pain could not buy them much these days. It had been many years since I had been purchased. However, they would take me back to my homeland and juice their pain for as much money as could be mustered.
I was handed back over to the land of prying eyes and hot glass. I sat among my equals and became accustomed to the sounds of speech once again. The ones that I had once called friends annoyed me. Their rasping voices pierced my shell, while the fluorescent lights gave me chills. I could almost feel a crack starting on my spine.
The next day the eyes started to come. They examined me and my fellows as though at a petting zoo. They came so close that their lashes brushed the surface of my cage.
‘Pick me!’
‘Look at the crack on her backside, you really want me!’
The sound of the desperate pleading from my equals drove me insane. These humans would just mistreat them, deprive them, and return them, yet all my equals seemed to love humans.
Humans ignored us, pretending that we were inanimate objects, unable to think or feel. They hurt us with no mercy.
I know that deeply in their hearts, they knew that we were alive as well. They knew that we could imagine and sense just as much as they could, and that is why they were always so deeply attracted to us.
As my thoughts drifted away, a human walked in with his eyes nervously downcast. His pupils were shaking like mad. I felt myself being lifted from my safety behind the glass. Please don’t take me, please, you don’t want me, I thought.
As we left the store, I was jumbled and shaken so much, that I almost broke. For the second time in my life, I was lifted up in a small black box towards a pair of eyes. These eyes did not become puddles of love or ponds of happiness as the other eyes had. These eyes stared down at me and became familiar slits. I remembered those eyes from a long time ago. I thought the darkness of these eyes might consume me if I stared any longer.
Before I could move my gaze, her eyes crinkled and a slab of white light overpowered the extreme darkness. She lifted me up and placed me on. Her gaze almost seemed…loving?
Amazing how love and a sweet surprise can change hard rocks to fountains of joy.