Eyelashes

I have long eyelashes. The better to bat you with. It’s something I don’t get to appreciate as much as other people who can view my profile without the aide of mirrors. I think it’s supposed to make my eyes soft.

Close up, my eyelashes seem grotesquely insectoid, like centipede legs (or like the fraying of an 18th century English whore’s hairbrush). In the morning they split open like two crusty cocoons, my left eye slightly faster than my right. But every day my left eye squanders its birthright for a good rub. Thus it’s cursed with astigmatism. At least that’s the story passed around by the scholars.

During the summer the fleas slide down my eyelashes and plunge into my cereal. In the dead of winter my eyelashes form icicles that scratch the surface of my eyeballs when I sleep so that I wake up red-eyed and passersby think I’m strung out and homeless. I just let them wonder. Long eyelashes conceal my eyes as well as my mysterious intentions.

Green eyeballs and long eyelashes. They would have branded me a wizard were I born in medieval times.

David Bowie. Jack the Ripper. Merlin. The prophet Jonah. They all had long eyelashes and green eyes (so did Rip Van Winkle and possibly Rip Torn, but don’t quote me on that).

We see the world through a darker filter. The stars glow fainter. Fire appears to burn less dangerously. We share more traits with the feline than the ape and curl up when we sleep. And we’re selfish as hell (something only we would brag about).

Do you want to touch them? Did you know that touching my eyelashes grants you three wishes? Did you know that the Nazis destroyed long eyelashes in great organized bonfires?

The eyes are the windows to the soul, and my eyelashes are the blinds. Or the prison bars.

Or are they the tuft of wild brush at the edge of the watering hole? Peer through the tall grass. Gaze into the pool and ponder your own reflection. What do you see?