Invisible Women

Women & Eyes 5

There is always mucous dripping from the eyes of the woman down the hall. It grosses us out. We wish she would go to the doctor and get it fixed. We tell her, “Woman, go to the doctor! Let him fix your eyes!”

She says, “No doctor can fix these old eyes. There are doctors who can fix eyes, yes, but not these old eyes.”

The woman down the hall is not old. In fact, she’s a good looking woman, nice body, strong features, except for that yellowish mucous that will not dry from her face. We have seen it travel down her face, past the soft curves of her breasts, and all the way to the cup of her knees. It’s disgusting. It’s repulsive.

We tell her, “Woman, you are not such an ugly woman. There is no reason for you to be so alone, so hideous with your lonely eyes.”

She says, “No doctor can fix these old eyes. There are doctors who can fix eyes, yes, but not these old eyes.”

The woman down the hall often tells us stories about where her eyes have been, how if only we had lived the life these poor, old eyes had lived, we would understand. She tells us elaborate stories about how she came to own these eyes, how they did not always belong to her, that she can remember a time when she was not so blessed and afflicted. She says that they were a gift, but we can’t imagine such a thing being a present. We can’t think of how one would wrap something so moist and spherical.

So we tell her this. We call bullshit on her story and the woman down the hall, she uses her fingers to scoop an eye out from her socket and there, right there underneath that mucous eye, there’s another eye! Under one set of her eyes, she has another. And somehow, we’re surprised when she tells us again, for the five thousandth time, “No doctor can fix these old eyes. There are doctors who can fix eyes, yes, but not these old eyes.”