Excerpt from Once You Let the Eyes In
Middle Division 1st Place 2015 International Champion
The wall was a mosaic at the moment, each
shard of glass its own unique block. Arranged as
it was, Graham knew it could shift to an image of
whichever or whomever, and yet he sat numbly,
feeling a presence beyond the glass walls. He felt
the scrutiny of the people, their million hungry
eyes crawling all over his body. Looking for signs
of distress, discomfort or annoyance, the people
watched so that they could sit down for a session
of morbid comedic indulgence, with him as the
first- class entertainer.
Graham was thinking about the ways in which
people let themselves become laughingstocks, or
rejoice in the presence of one.
I guess people like the idea of showcasing their
stupidity. Just look at us now.
In order to follow the trend of celebrating
deliberate idiocy, the primitive reality tv show
format was extended to the masses through social
media. Now, no matter what the situation was, it
was forever documented and shared. It was the
new big thing: Contifoot, the Continuous Footage
System forever documenting each of one’s
actions. Contifoot was the new way of living life
through someone else’s experiences.
****
Graham woke from the couch, and for the first
time he could remember, he woke to his mother
sitting beside his makeshift bed. He imagined the
words she had for him, but nothing came close to
what she actually thrust upon his groggy, irritated
self:
“You finally did something! That night, we got
more views than ever! Keep your mind spinning;
you’ve finally found your role: the young rascal!
With your sister as the pretty one, and you as the
aggressive one, we have all our bases covered!”
With that same zeal, his mother went to
assemble the new Contifoot system. Graham
watched in horror as the witness and perpetrator
of the terror to come was swiftly hung up on its
track. The camera calibrated, refocused and
narrowed its gaze on its new target.
Once we let those eyes in, they never
turned away