The International Writers Magazine: Dreamscapes

My Third Eye • Michelle D'costa No one knew about my third eye. All my three eyes were special.

My left eye was kind of useless as it could only see what everyone else could see.

But my right eye could see a person or a thing or an animal the way that person or thing or animal looked at itself. Kind of like a mirror, yes.

And my third eye which was invisible to the world, hidden in my ample hair, could see what no one else could even dream about.

I discovered this gradually as I grew.

The first time I felt I was gifted was when my left eye registered my Mom making tea, dunking the tea bag in and out of her favourite tea cup.

Just then my right eye saw the tiredness in her fingers, the boredom in the monotonous tugging yet the self-loathing at being so lazy so as not to brew the tea.

She missed sniffing the tea powder just before brewing spoonfuls of it but now she didn’t have the time. Nor could she tolerate the uneventful tugging any more. She coiled the swollen tea bag around a tea spoon and pressed it until it bled to its last drop into the cup and then tossed it aside knowing it had fulfilled her need.

I thought it deserved some respect and that’s when my third eye opened and I saw the tea bag come to life. My eye zoomed in on the tea bag which appeared deflated to Mom but I could see it heaving lightly, it was taking its last breaths. Each tea particle in the bag was angry at Mom’s ungratefulness. Their whispers got louder and incoherent. The string around the bag attached to a famous tea label was slowly uncoiling and stretching. It stretched so long, it crept closer to Mom and was dangerously close to strangling her.

I came in the way of the string.

The thread wrapped around my finger but Mom’s cup fell.

The hot tea spilled over her tender calves.

I knew it would have hurt her but it was nothing compared to what she would have experienced at the hands of the tea bag had I not intervened.

But if only she had got the hint and stopped using tea bags totally it would have saved her from lethargy and obesity.

Mom slapped me for it. She said I had let blood clot on my finger just to draw her attention. Well yes, but for her own good.

Dad spent most of the time in the basement. Once when I stumbled on him when he was midst his little “routine” he seemed embarrassed. That’s what my left eye saw, embarrassment. Then my right eye saw his pride, at having been caught by his son but not ashamed in the least. It was a man thing after all.

My third eye at first took some time to focus because of all the hair obscuring its vision but when the eye did focus I saw the various magazines sprawled around my Dad’s feet like women stripped of their dignity without their permission.

The magazine which was the most abused, its pages wrinkled from repeat assault, its edge torn from a time when it wasn’t providing the service it should have, was the most furious.

It threatened to kill my Dad in his sleep.

The magazine vowed to let itself die after killing my Dad by shredding every page of it and slicing through my Dad’s weapon.

Vengeance would give its feeble self the strength it needed for murder.

I rushed and threw it in the dust bin and in my panic I told Dad that I had to tell Mom of his little “routine” as it was harmful to all of us.

Dad whacked me so hard. My third eye was injured.

But it recovered soon.

But not the marriage. When Mom found out few years later they divorced as she was obese and couldn’t take anymore humiliation from my Dad.

I was upset that my eyes were of no use to me.

Whenever I tried looking within me to know why no one understood me, all three shut themselves like coffins.

I couldn’t see why I was so gifted when no one could appreciate my gift?

So I didn’t tell anyone about my third eye.

I wanted my eyes to respond to me. They never did.

Until one day when Dad decided we would get bald together.

I cried deeply for my third eye to respond. And it did. It finally did.

It said, ‘You need me. I need you. If you let me go. If you expose me to this world which does not appreciate me. I will die. I will go away from you where there is no return or better I will be with someone who appreciates me. What will you do with the void, the gaping socket once I am gone?’

I replied in my defence, ‘But I don’t need you. You have never been of any use to me. No one understands me because of you.’

My hair fell in clumps to the ground. My heart was beating badly. I was waiting for the moment when my third eye would be exposed.

My right eye saw my shiny bald head.

My left eye saw how sad and scared I was.

My third eye had finally left me. Leaving no gaping hole behind. Only confusion.

And a deep sorrow of feeling empty like a flower stripped of its nectar.

I had lost my gift and I couldn’t even tell anyone about it.

But since then the world loved me for being normal. Ordinary. Like them.

http://pikoomish.wordpress.com/

My Journey So Far (A Memoir)
Michelle D'costa
I never knew I had a latent writing bug in me. I despised books as a child. When I received my first Enid Blyton book you should have witnessed my expression for the thickness of the book made me almost faint.

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