Eye Test | 19 July 2021

“Try to stop focusing your eyes.”

“I’m trying.  I think I can see one now.”

“That’s not quite right.  Relax.  Don’t think too hard about it.  Just allow yourself to take it all in.”

BNR Response

I blinked my eyes a few times to reset, I really wanted to see the stars I had heard so much about.  Opening my eyes anew, I found there was something obstructing my view.  Then there was a body. 

“Ugh!  Char-LIE!  Get OFF!”  I push upward against Charlie’s soft body mass, like trying to get a squishy coffin lid open. 

“PPPPFFFFFFF what’s wrong?”  he stage-whispered with genuine exasperation.  “I thought you said you were ready to finally do it!”

“I didn’t say that, and even if I were it wouldn’t be in the planetarium!  Mr. Fleischmann is right over there!”  I reason.  I was in no mood to have our creepy AP Chem teacher watch me get felt up.

And just like that, the lights fade even further and I realize that I hadn’t been able to see the stars because they hadn’t yet turned them on.  How had I fallen for that?  We lay next to each other in the darkness, Charlie and I, in the full-recline seats they had told us about before the field trip.  He was so close that our sleeves were touching, and I could hear his breath, but I felt worlds apart.  We’d been going together for six months and I thought I really meant something to him – not just another SnapChat hook-up like the other girls.  When I had said I wanted to take things slow, he had been patient and understanding.  Now that prom was a week away, it seemed that my stay of execution had been abruptly denied. 

“Come on, let’s head to the taxidermized animals instead, this blows.” Charlie said, now at full volume, hopping up so quickly out of his chair that it snapped back to ninety degrees like a mousetrap.  I got up, sheepishly, and followed him out of the darkened room by feeling my way along the aisle, my eyes not yet fully adjusted to the pitch.

He slid his right hand down my jeans in front of the cro magnon mannequins and, later, his left hand conveniently dropped from my shoulder to my boob in the mummy exhibit.  I wasn’t frigid or anything, which had become his refrain-of-the-week, but I also wasn’t trying to get branded a slut or to run into my parent’s friends while necking among the dinosaur bones.

About an hour or so later, we somehow found ourselves reintegrated with the rest of our class.  It was as if we had just taken an unintentional detour and come through the other side of a worm hole and landed right where we were meant to be.  I was relieved for it, a respite from my boyfriend the octopus.  Charlie was bereft and wandered over to a few of his bros to strategize about spit balls or wedgies or whatever boys care about.  Following the group, we were now going into some kind of dark tunnel and another atmosphere change.  It felt clammy and it smelled like damp, this must be the amphibian space.  Once again disoriented by the sudden change in environments and fragrances.  This museum had like ten worlds and epochs inside one giant football field-sized building, I loved it here.  I could feel bodies bumping around me in the close quarters.  The soft masses navigated and orbited each other like a gentle spin cycle, offering up body odor, adolescent cologne, and the wonderful smell of flannel.  We bumped and jostled as we pushed our way through the glass-walled tunnel, lined with snake enclosures and reptile habitats.  Then, the familiar, the inevitable: a hand, firm, squeezing, on my butt.  “Jesus, Charlie!”  I hissed as we emerged into the light, bright in our eyes as when waking from a nap in the sun. 

“What, babe?” Charlie called back from ahead of me, in the light.

My neck then snapped around to identify the owner of this probing hand.  “Mr. Fleischmann?!” 

DD Response

I closed my eyes and focused on letting go until I knew I wasn’t blocking myself, and I opened my eyes. Millions of fireflies danced around the field, and I was awestruck.

I watched their dance and was transported back to Tullahoma, Tennessee in the summer of 1966. Granddaddy took me with him on his tractor to check on the cows. Time with him included a lot of silence, but I knew it was different than the silence that came from my mama’s pursed lips. I felt so wanted sitting between his legs with his big scruffy hands covering mine on the steering wheel. We rode out to the pasture over the hill where the cows were grazing and stopped, not getting too close. Granddaddy watched, and I watched him watch. I know now he was counting, but then I just thought he was watching. Not watching to catch them doing something bad, but watching to make sure they were all safe. I wanted to be watched like that.

 “Up,” he said, and I knew he wanted me to get up off his lap. He held my hand and supported me as I jumped to the ground. I turned and watched his slow steady movements as he climbed down and bent over to pick something up off the ground. “June bug” he said, holding a shiny iridescent green bug. Granddaddy handed me the bug and it buzzed in my little hands. He smiled as he reached into the pack hanging on the back of the tractor seat and pulled out a ball of string. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out his pocket knife. I watched him curiously knowing that he was doing something for me. Just for me. He handed me the piece of string as he put away his knife and asked if I knew how to fly a June bug. “I think you’re gonna show me,” I replied as he chuckled. He gingerly tied the string to one of the legs and handed me the other end as he threw the bug up in the air.

It buzzed and flew in a circle over my head like a tiny motorized kite. I circled in unison until I got dizzy and plopped to the ground laughing out loud. “That’ll do” he said as he cut the string away and set the June bug free. “Hop up,” he said. We mounted the tractor, and I snuggled back into Granddaddy’s lap for the ride back to the barn.

The sun was setting and the golden glow on the treetops faded to black on the ground underneath. We came around the final turn to home where the trees line up as sentry’s around the farmhouse backyard. I saw sparkles under the trees. “Look Grandaddy!!! Fairies!!!!”  I yelled with excitement. He chuckled and stopped the tractor just short of the barn door. We sat there in silence and watched the fairies dancing under the trees until Grandmother rang the bell calling us to dinner.