Hoag’s Object

I had gotten used to the eyes, one after the other, peering constantly through the jagged remains of where a peephole once sat. Stranger’s trying to catch a glimpse of the accused until: This eye, this very eye in particular, that stared with a deep hatred burning into my soul. I knew this red-gold-hazel iris that lit up a room like fire. She was the reason I would be locked in this cabin, a prisoner, until our arrival in Pteetneet City. This is where the proper authorities would step in to arrest me.

Murder. I wasn’t going to fight it, I was guilty. I murdered this woman and I had no regrets about it. I’d do it again.

She was beautiful, Yiska Hasenpfeffer, with her auburn hair that flowed down her sides and bounced at her waist.

She was one of many lucky guests upon the maiden voyage of the Serpens Caput, a non-stop luxury passenger railway from Whitehorse to Pteetneet City.

“Leave me alone,” I cried. I lunged at the door and slapped my hand against the eye. The sound of my hand slapped against the soft timber door reverberated back to myself in slow motion. Everything grew quiet. I took a deep breath.

“Quiet in there,” said my citizen sheriff, Barry the cloud architect.

I shook myself into real time and removed my hand. The eye was gone. The railway rumbled under our feet.

“Excuse me, Barry. Might I ask to use the restroom?”

“I, uh, can’t you just go in there or something?” Barry blundered.

“Barry, I think you know I mean you no harm. You can pat me down or escort me. I suppose you could just give me a bucket, but I promise you that for both our sakes I should use the restroom,” I said.

“Yeah, okay, use the one in the kitchen, through the staff dining car. I’ll be right outside the door.”

Barry escorted me out of staff cabin 5255 where I took an immediate left. We went through the dining car. It was eerie to see the dining car empty.

Inside the bathroom, and inside the second white stall from the door, I sat and inhaled the scent of industrial floor cleaner. I heard the bathroom door open, three quick footsteps, and then between the cracks of the stall doors: the red-gold-hazel iris that lit up a room like fire, Yiska Hasenpfeffer.

I had killed Yiska Hasenpfeffer, but that eye was undenyingly hers.

“No!” I begged and kicked my feet at the door in fright. The door nearly blew off its hinges as it exploded open to reveal that there was no one there, but my good friend silence.

“Barry, are you still guarding me?” I asked out loud to no reply.

I gently peaked out the kitchen door to see the very empty dining room and something did not feel right. The air felt thicker, the lights a little darker, and I knew that I could not return to that way. The feeling grew inside me, tugging at my lungs, and I had to flee. I turned and dashed through the kitchen into the rear dining car and through there to the first guest car.

I saw no one along the way.

I stopped at Cabin A and put my ear to the door and listened, but nothing stirred. I rasped my finger against the door, rat-a-tat-tat, and attempted to look reverse through the peephole to no avail. The cabin was empty.

“Hello,” I called out and repeated my doorway ritual on Cabin’s B, C, D, and so forth. I was alone in this car and I was alone in the next. Just like I was alone in the dining cars, the kitchen, and the staff cars. Where had Barry gone? I was alone in the lounge car, the observation car, and the spa car.

I continued my path in the same direction. I called out and knocked on doors. Cabin’s N, O, P, and so forth. Where was everyone?

I ran, never looking back, moving train car to train car until I found myself standing in front of staff cabin 5255.

I closed my eyes and opened the door. It was exactly how I had left it.

I sat on the side of the little bed and looked around the cheap hotel style cabin. Cheap bedding, dollar store art, and that tacky mirror. That tacky tacky mirror.

It was then, through the mirror, I saw the eye again. It bulged through the little hole in the door, stretching like a children’s cartoon until it popped through and plopped on the floor. I stood and, still looking through the mirror, saw that she was there.

Yiska Hasenpfeffer. Yiska and the red-gold-hazel irises that light up any room like fire. I could see her because she was me and my eyes burned.

“No!” I screeched and lunged at the mirror. I laced my fingers around mirror Yiska Hasenpfeffer’s thin throat and she did the same upon mine and we squeezed. We squeezed and gasped and tears ran down our faces.

The eyeball on the floor rolled toward me.

I looked into mirror Yiska Hasenpfeffer’s eyes and I watched as the flame sputtered and went gray. I killed Yiska Hasenpfeffer and I dropped the mirror to the ground to let it shatter at my feet.

I let tears mix with fat gobs of gooey snot until I collapsed to the ground.

The eyeball rolled up to my face and I looked at it and it looked at me. I picked up the eyeball with red-gold-hazel iris that lit up a room like fire.

I crushed the eye and felt the flames escape between my fingers. Between the few precious moments I had before the life cycle would all start again and after I would be engulfed in flames, I thought to myself:

“What a peculiar galaxy.”