Short Story Sunday: The Eyes Have It

Time for round two, Short Story Sunday makes its return!  May I present the strange, sad tale of a man who, for all his incredible kinds of  super-vision, is blind.  A note: these are essentially first drafts I'm putting up here.  If anyone would like to take a stab at editing and the like for me, I'd love to talk to you.

The Eyes Have It

            It was always the eyes, the way they held that look of pure disappointment.  Without a word, their eyes would tell me everything I needed to know.  I had failed them. Again.  I had tried my best, and just as every, single, time it was insufficient. 

            Their words never matched their eyes, of course.  Soothing, palliative words for the failure. The adopted son that could never please his parents.  They always spoke of how wonderful it was that I’d managed to save almost everyone. How I’d almost managed to stop all the robbers.  They would have sounded so genuine, if it weren’t for those eyes punctuating every word.  Filling each sentence with a silent sigh of disapproval.  I could see the smallest microbe, gaze upon a crossword a mile away, and melt things simply by concentrating, but nothing I could do compared with the power of their stare.

            So I trained.  I practiced, every day.  I could run as fast as a train, soon I would be faster than a speeding bullet.  I could lift a tractor, soon I would be more powerful than even a locomotive.  I could leap tall buildings in one jump, maybe someday I wouldn’t have to come back down.  Then, then I couldn’t fail.  I would mold myself into the son they could be proud of.

            They would love me then.

            It was slow going.  I toiled every spare moment in the hot Kansas sun working the fields, and training.  Always training. Sometimes, I would look to the house, and with my incredible vision I could occasionally see them on the porch. They stood staring out at the fields, at me.  And their eyes were filled with sadness.  The disappointment at my unfulfilled potential.  So I worked harder.

            I struggled in that little town until I could take it no more.  Until I could feel their eyes on me even through the walls, lying sleepless at night. So I packed my meager things, and I moved to a bustling metropolis.

            I saved lives. I wrote reports.  I fell in love.  I made friends. I made enemies.  But whenever I would look west, I could feel it.  I had to do more.  Do better.

            So I expanded.  No longer would I protect just one city, but a state.  When the whole state was safe, I could relax.  It wasn’t easy, pacifying an entire state.  I became fast. Faster than I’d ever been.  And I made more enemies.  Even some friends, those who weren’t strong enough, became enemies.  But it didn’t matter.  Soon, soon I would be a saviour to an entire state. 

            But it wasn’t enough.  I went home, to see the pride on their faces at what their adopted son had accomplished, and was met with only the weary sadness of age.  They hugged me close, told me they missed me.  Ma said I needed to get some sleep, that I looked so tired.  Even then, her eyes could not let me find peace.  Their words mocked me with every syllable, each word a dagger plunged into my chest.

            So I left once more. 

            I didn’t return until the whole world was safe.  Until I had brought all the nations to heel, stopped the fighting and the wars, pacified an entire globe. 

            I changed the very nature of humanity, and I would be loved for it. 

            But when I landed on the porch, the eyes were there, and they had grown in my absence.  I couldn’t see their faces for the eyes, staring into me with disappointment, and something new. Fear. 

            Fear of my power.  And disappointment in its use.

            They said... things.  I can never quite remember the words.  Sometimes, in my dreams, I hear Pa say that he was always upset that I’d never learned to relax.  That I didn’t have to save everyone.  That I could just be their son.  And it feels so sweet.  But then I awake and I remember the mocking tone of their gaze and I know it could never have been.

            I know now that I’ll never escape those eyes, not so long as I live.  And who knows how long I will live?  They will haunt me forever, perhaps.  They will follow me wherever I go.

            Even now, holding them in my hands, the four old eyes mock me.  So I fly away.  I leave the corpses I made and never return, but the words they never spoke echo in my mind.

How could we ever love you, you monster. 

            You murderer.

           

You alien.