Now for something different — a short story for Sci-Friday. Have you ever felt that you were different? You just don’t belong here?
Black Pupil
“I’ve always felt there was something different about me, starting with my eyes.” Sandy took off her glasses and tilted her head toward the woman sitting across from her at the table. She opened her eyes wide to show her. “I’ve looked at them about a million times in the mirror, and I notice I have these amber starbursts around my pupils, and I’ve always had this black blob-thing too – it pools out at the bottom of my right pupil. The kids at school called me Creepy Eyes, really not cool. I cried a lot in school.”
Svetlana nodded, peering at Sandy’s eyes through black-rimmed glasses. She ticked a few boxes on her clipboard. “Go on,” she said in a heavy Slavic accent, her lips thick with cherry red gloss.
“And by the way, thanks so much for meeting with me on such short notice, Sveetlayna. Am I pronouncing your name right? Sveetlayna?”
Svetlana smiled. “It’s Svetlana, just say it really fast…Svetlana.”
“Svetlana, right. And then there’s the dreams. As soon as I slide into lucid sleep, I find I’m paralyzed, I can’t move at all. And then I start floating out of my bed to the bottom of the stairs, and then out the door. I float all the way to the end of the driveway where this…this being waits for me, just standing there in a dark robe. I can’t see its face, but it welcomes me and then we talk like we’re old buddies and I float down the sidewalk. Then I see this UFO in the sky, flashing its lights above us. Suddenly, I’m back in my bed and my body vibrates,” Sandy finally stopped talking. Her hands trembled as she brought the coffee cup up to her lips. “Sounds crazy, I know, I sound like a frigging nut. If my husband heard me talk like this, he’d tell me to grow up and stop watching Stranger Things, which I don’t even watch. But anyway, this has happened to me, I don’t know, about 9 or 10 times. I lost count.”
Svetlana scribbled on her clipboard and then looked at her and that’s when Sandy caught it. Her eyes. The pupils closed to vertical slits, like a snake’s, for just a sharp second. And then, they were human eyes again.
Sandy stared at Svetlana, trying to make sense of it. Her head turned fizzy and light, and a million needles pricked her scalp. What in the actual frig? I’m going nuts. I know it. She caught her breath. Just continue on so she doesn’t suspect you’re having a mental breakdown. “Uh, so that’s where you come in,” Sandy continued. “I saw your post on X, that you’re a UFO and paranormal researcher, and I thought I’d send you a DM and get in touch, to, you know, see if there’s others like me. You said there’s others right?” Her words were shaky and she felt vulnerable like a child just about to cry.
“Yes, there are others, Sandy, you’re not crazy,” Svetlana said, pushing her glasses up. She returned to her clipboard. “Are you oldest kid in your family?”
“Yes,” Sandy said, staring intently at her eyes. She tried to make it seem like she wasn’t observing her, like she wasn’t waiting for her eyes to change again. This time, she’d be ready for it.
“And what’s your blood type?”
Sandy paused, looking around the small diner for answers. All she saw was peeling wallpaper and grease stains. She bounced her leg. “Uh… I think it’s RH negative, no wait… It’s RH positive, but I’m not sure.”
Svetlana flicked her eyes up from her clipboard. “Do you have protruding occipital bone?”
Sandy sat back. “What’s that?” This was too much.
Svetlana pointed to the back of her head with her pencil. “You know, it’s the bone at back of your head. Does it stick out a little?” She pronounced it leetal, and Sandy shifted in her seat. There it is again. Her eyes. For a split second, they’re like a snake’s, and then they go back to normal.
Sandy ran her fingers over the back of her skull, and her heart floated up to her throat. “I guess, maybe a little…why?”
“And what about school? Did you ever spend time in special program at school when you were a kid? Have you ever heard about CIA Gate program?”
“Um, I don’t think so…listen, I think I’m just going to go now. I’m not feeling well, thank you for listening to me, I must sound like a crazy woman.”
“Sandy, wait. I have someting to show you.” She pulled up her sleeve. Sandy saw a half-moon shaped mole on her right wrist. “You have this?”
Sandy sat back. She quickly checked her right wrist. “How did you know?”
Svetlana’s eyes changed. Her pupils flitted back into a reptilian’s. She held up her phone and flipped the camera outward. “You have my eyes too, Sandy.” Sandy watched herself blink into the phone, and her pupils closed into vertical slits like hers.
Love this story, so fun!
Oooh - so, you've got to keep this going... so weird and unsettling. x