when eyes open

“Who can say it’s not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what’s described here isn’t the true essence of things?” He slowed down outside a door. “Haven’t you ever heard old men sigh that life’s a dream?”
― Ismail Kadaré, The Palace Of Dreams

It was 2 o’clock, precisely five minutes past 2am. Juno slept on her stomach. Her shoulders arched so that her hands safely held her breasts for comfort if I must say. That’s how she slept or maybe, it was an unconscious behavior -when her eyes closed, instinctively, she would protect or perhaps hide her hands. Her lips were tightly shut in a purse. She breathed softly, you could see her back rise and fall. Juno was in REM sleep. Juno’s brown eyes fluttered open. There was a child wrapped in a light blue shawl. The teddy bears depicted on the shawl popped out each minute as if reaching out to grab Juno. Juno pushed her face backwards in frustration. She couldn’t move her hands to hit the teddy bears. Comparably, her hands seemed tired down and the teddy tears appeared to know. So, they teased her and came faster at her every time she pushed her face back.

Juno closed her eyes hoping to shut the bloody teddy bear paws out and she did. Her previously soft dark cheeks now bore three freshly cut bleeding curves that cut deep into the flesh of her finely inclined jaws. But curiosity had the best of her. Juno knew that was a child that she had seen. Before she could decide if she was ready to face the teddy bears’ wrath, her right eye tightly shut, it wore the predynastic oval cowhide shield and abandoned the task for the left eye. Without fail, the left eye fluttered open.

The baby wasn’t there. Instead there was a man dressed in an army jacket sitting in the chair directly opposite, staring at her. The right eye flew open hesitant to miss this moment. An army officer? Juno felt the skin in her palms rip apart. Neither her face nor palms hurt but there was a gush of air entering her entire body and it wasn’t from just the pores of her skin. The air seemed to come from the man sitting across her because it absorbed her entirety. It was in her nose, hair and she thought she had felt it even the back of her neck and knees. The feeling made her drowsy with a kind of high. Juno though, for a second that she was sinking in a bottomless pit of enormous folds of different skin. Juno tried to observe her surroundings but she knew nothing of a space like this. Everything was hollow echoing darkness. Just the man, herself and from the corner of her left eye, she paused.

The child now looked older and was crawling. Crawling on top of her shoulders. It was then that she began to feel the bulk on her shoulders. The microscopic hands were purposefully grabbing onto her neck. She neither felt strangled nor any kind of pain. But the touch was not hers and that was horrific as it could be. Juno began to panic. She looked over at the man and he seemed to say, immutably “it took you long enough now, didn’t it?” Juno desired to send her palm flying but the one time she had cared to employ her arms dreadfully, she was incapable. The man still didn’t move a muscle. He just looked, almost absent mindedly but it was her, he was looking at. She thought he was mocking her and it made her furious. Even so, she seemed to know that this child was hers, not his. So why then, did the soft tender touch of a child feel like she was being tortured with cold barbed wire? The child’s touch sent shivers through her entire body. Juno’s teeth chattered. She nervously caged her eyes.

Everything seemed to halt for a microsecond. It all just faded away. Just not her breath. Juno was panting through her mouth, like she had been in a cross country race. Her eyes however, were subconsciously in control of themselves tonight. They opened again. The man was still hoovering on top of her as if he had been waiting for her to open her eyes. Juno’s eyes both took chances noticing the moment. There was something else, a sticky fluid was trickling from her breasts. It was flowing, like a stream of Christian hope. Suddenly, Juno seemed to have found her arms for the first time in the night. Blood, so much blood coming from just above her ribs, like a crimson extraction for a soucouyant’s healing.

A rib bone popped into sight and more blood gushed out into her arms. Juno scram but there wasn’t a sound from her own mouth. Juno cried out for her mom and sealed her eyes shut. Again.

When Juno opened her eyes, it was a blinding bright morning. There was a scent of hibiscus tea in the air. Something about that scent filled her stomach with blossoms, she gasped. Juno smelt love in the air, it was like a song of the flowers. There was only one woman that made hibiscus tea so well and she walked in instantly. Juno swore it was Enya’s “Only Time” playing in the back of her mind when she thought of her mother. Juno gazed at her, eyes wide open. The woman was a miracle, an absolute pour of radiant joy and she continued to realize that she knew what love was, is- because of this woman. How could it be possible that you could see someone everyday of your life and each time filled you with comfort and nourishment? Juno exhaled, she was relieved for the first time tonight so she ignored the agitated movement in her mouth. Her mother was now here, everything was okay.

Except that today, Juno’s mother walked in with a child wrapped in a light blue shawl with teddy bears. The child stared at the teddy bear in her own arms, like another baby and didn’t bat an eye at Juno even for a minute. Not for a second either. Juno’s mother tickled the child and she laughed out loud, giggling. It made the morning sunrays beam brighter through the window. Juno laughed at the sight of it. Her mother smiled at her but rather, pitifully. Not the way she had smiled with the child. Juno felt something twirl in her own heart, she knew to discard such sneaky emotions. Juno moved her mouth to ask her mother where the hibiscus was but perhaps, she had forgotten how to speak for there was still no sound from what she thought she was saying. Juno’s mother folded her brows and Juno knew that face. Her mother was worried about her. But why?

Juno felt her head spin with a turmoil. She winced and her mother came to her side. Juno’s mother said something like, you said you didn’t want to talk anymore. Her mother assumed she had asked when by the purse on Juno’s lips. Her mother knew Juno was frustrated. You took it away yourself, when you were younger. Juno heard her mother whisper something like that and then the turmoil got stronger. That’s when she registered that her teeth had been chattering the entire time. There was a sticky metallic liquid taste in her mouth too. Her knowledge of the taste of a liquid like that made her realize what it could be. Juno swallowed but nothing went past her throat. Juno’s mother spoke but her voice faded and Juno only saw her mother’s lips and move explaining. Her mother even sobbed and hugged the child she held. Juno simply wished she could hear what her mother said. She wished that if it be the last thing she would ever say, she begged that her mother would hear Juno tell her not to cry. Juno felt the blood flow down to her neck. She panicked and broke down into tears. The salty tears pinched into the open flesh on her cheeks and when she blinked, her mother was gone. Juno shut her eyes, this time she hoped it would be forever.

There wasn’t a scent lurking in the air so Juno’s eyes took the initiative without her regard and dared to flicker open. The man in the army jacket was hoovering over her, flashing a green light into her eyes. Perhaps still waiting for her to wake up. Juno’s mouth was sticky. She involuntarily tried to wet her mouth but moving it made the dry blood pluck the hairs at the corner of her lips. Juno squeezed her eyes shut but they flew open. Again.

Her jaws were hurting deeply and her arms were numb. Juno was sweating particularly in her palms and below her breasts. She looked around. Her army green jacket was hanging in a hanger above her head and it startled her. It was the green lights in her bedroom that were flashing. Electricity had probably returned while she slept. Fortunately, Juno had now woken up.

perhaps love