Third Eye

“Little digger girl, if you want to visit the city, you’ll need some forms to fill out for an herbal bath, vaccinations, and new clothing. Otherwise hog off back to the pits. You smell like sulfur and your hair looks like the inside of my stained commode.” The man in full red suit watches me with gleaming blue eyes. His third eye nestles in the middle of his forehead and blinks heavily making a ‘sqeaulch’ sound. He stood behind a large rusted desk nestled in front of two highly secured metal doors.

A large wall cuts through 200 miles of Lily’s dry land; a place known as ‘The Sahara’s younger sister.’ It pushes itself through the sands and turns to form an oval shape. They are to keep village folks like myself out. Just seven miles from where I stand rests a village and it’s deeply dug-out pits. My people and all those who came before us worked there. Digging is what stains us with marks that show where we stand in society; lowly crystal diggers.

Behind this three-eyed man and his metal doors is a society called Rue, a city filled with enlightenment and ruled by Philosopher leadership. This Utopia was named after a pious woman who dirtied her hands 1500 years ago to keep her children safe and adopted every one in her-war-torn land. A flat hand with a single scar across the palm is the city’s sacred symbol.

Here I stand representing Mother Rue with dirt underneath my fingernails and blisters on my knuckles, yet not allowed passage to Her Utopia. Love for The Mother runs deep within me as it does them.

I wear a single off-white dress sewn by my aunt that once had beads. My hair has been wildly shaped by the long travel. My sandals are knotted together with rubber pieces of worn-out tires from the escalators back home. It didn’t matter how much I tried to look less like a quartz-digger; the way I walked or jogged or even bent down to pick something up would tell it for me. These days, I proudly wear a small crystal quartz carved into a heart-shaped locket around my neck. Inside is a small frame of my grandmother.

I show him a crumbled paper in my hand. My thumb has left a brown stain on the corner of it. He lifts his chin to get a better look.

“That’s a donation form, you here to donate?” His voice had changed as he looks down and pulls out a laser gun. Before I could answer he scans both my eyes behind the desk and looks at his data-pad. His eyebrows raise and pushes a button underneath his desk.

“No cysts, chalazions, iris trauma or visual impairments. You got a good pair on you girl, some customers would pay you double,” he says. I shake my head hard as a smaller door of the big metal door begins to creak open behind him, “I’m not here to donate,” My heart jumps to my throat as a man wearing three goggles, a mask and a tight white micro-suit up to his neck squeezes himself through the door before it opened completely. He walks around the rusted desk and stands six-feet-part from me. His eyes gleam through the glass frames as he stares. I suddenly feel like a bug that’s been discovered by a cactus wren; readying to be pecked and swallowed.

The red-suited man speaks up after a moment, “Ain’t waiting for no wedding bells, you germaphobe.” The mans folded arms shakes as he chuckles behind the mask.

“I wear this suit for pit-diggers like her,” he talks like I’m not here, “you think I need to take my mask off to know she smells like yesterdays curry I left in the toilet this morning?” They both roar with laughter. My heart begins to pound as rage rises to my throat. I hold it down. Second time, I hold out the form.

“Sir,” I say calmly, “This form belongs to my aunt. Two years ago, she donated her left eye to your Medical Society. Here’s the proof,” I point to a line at the bottom where a blue hand symbol had been stamped, “My auntie was promised double the payment because her eye was in excellent shape. She got paid only in small coins and some grounded turmeric.” The man in the red suit blows air from his nose and leans his arm against the desk. The white-suited man cocks his head as if offended.

I try not to huff, “Right now, she’s bedridden from illness and I need money for her medicine. Please,” I say it with needles in my mouth, “Please, I would like to receive the rest of the payment she was promised.” Both men narrow their eyes at each other.

“Little girl,” the red-suited man speaks first, “if that forms from two years ago, then she ain’t in the records no more. That’s good as gone. We don’t keep anything after two months. New information, new patients, new donators, new—”

“Shut it Ron,” the man in the white suit says loudly, “she doesn’t need to know that.” Ron gawks and thumps his head onto his desk and growls. His third eyes blink’s hard from contact.

“You just had to— ugh,” he grumbles, “Now she knows my name.” The white-suited man hasn’t stopped watching me through his three goggles. I want to cry right on the spot. Deep down I knew there would be a negative reaction.

“Look,” he shows me his gloved hands, “What he’s saying is true. We don’t have any records from that long ago. So that paper is useless. Best advice I got for you is to go back home and wait for your villages next delivery of First Aid. Or you could fill out a form for yourself.” A combination of exhaustion from the travel along with dehydration causes me to lose it completely. I can’t go home and see Auntie Sal’s pale face in bed empty-handed; going back to re-wetting a towel and placing it onto her forehead. Watching her weak breaths turning more raged day-by-day.

She once told me the working-women in my village are labeled un-hinged, angry, and hostile by the city people; the truth was no one listened to us. People who are ignored daily tend to become the loudest of speakers.

“Three weeks,” I bellow, “The First Aid is going to arrive three hogging weeks from now!” I ball my hands, “She donated her precious eye so she could pay for the leg injury I had in quartz pits and didn’t tell anyone she got less than half of that money! All she cared about was getting enough coins to help me. She did it to help save my leg from being amputated! Why can’t you help her? You have an entire facility full of medicine and basic First Aid Kits! Why can’t you just give one to me?”

The man in the white suit waits until I can no longer speak. I knew he watches me with little empathy as I sob into my hands. I didn’t care that two despicable men saw me in such a whimpering state. As long as Auntie Sal didn’t; she would hate that.

“You must really love her,” he says with a nod, “as much as your aunt had shown her gratitude to Mother and offering a piece of herself to the people of Her beloved city.” He shows me his hands, “As my friend here says, we no longer carry the financial records from two years ago. The best offer I can give you to help this situation is to sign up yourself.” I stand still; knowing full well what was about to be offered, the exact reason why I was terrified of traveling this far to stand in front of these gigantic metal doors.

The memory of Auntie's sluggish form from two years ago erupts into my mind. I was sitting in bed shivering from fever-chills; my bruised leg propped up with two pillows. Watching her slowly make her way to my side with a tightly wrapped box swinging from her waist. I watched only her face as she slowly sat beside me and began pulling little tubes out of the First Aid. A soothing paste was rubbed onto my injured leg. I remember the pain withering away from my leg; but my heart had torn from its chest as I got a closer look at what she had sacrificed. Half her left upper-face had been placed with silver plating; right where the metal ended her skin was puffed and red from the stitches. Her bionic eye rolled from the lack of control. She tried to comfort me with a weak smile as tears formed in my eyes.

“Our Beloved Mother Rue was not just a reader,” he says, “she was a philosopher. And a healer. Born in times of nuclear winter, she was so radiant even an other-worldly being came down from the stars to greet her in times of war.” He pauses to watch my reaction as if this story is new to me, “When this creature met with her, she gave it a piece of bread as a welcoming gift to Earth. In gratitude, the creature gave her the secret formula on universal connection and how to use it properly.” In the corner of my eye I see Ron bowing his head and whispering a prayer in Her name.

“When she shared this information with her first-born son, he immediately offered to help. He ripped out one of his eyes and gave it to her. With her abilities, she was able to awaken her spiritual side and find her purpose. Obtaining her third eye was the key to finding the answers she was looking for. She felt so full of light and wanted to share this feeling,” He places a finger up so I wouldn’t speak, “Mother Rue believed that once you are open to a universal connection, you could live in peace. And if a society is taught these lessons, everyone in that society can thrive with knowledge and understanding.” Suddenly, he removes the goggles and the mask that reveals his face. In the middle of his forehead is a glinting green eye. It blinks, "Even a being as radiant as her knew sacrifices must be made." My shoulder's slumped. His lecture I did not take to heart; for my aunt has already been placed there.

“We have a young man here in need of awakening,” he takes out a data-pad and flips it around to show me a young boy’s face, “Born into a good family. They all know their place in society. They love to bake and play board games. He’s the only odd ball out who doesn’t know what he wants. Boy needs some blooming.” I stand there with envy; I want to spit. I feel it boiling inside my stomach and igniting the back of my spine.

“Your left eye has got a good glint to it, we’ll pay triple up front,” He doesn’t lower the data-pad. I didn’t even know this kid and I already hated him and his grain-sized issues, “you can have the money and we’ll also offer three of the best First Aid Kits. Imagine girl, your name could be put on a plank as gratitude for your sacrifice. Go back home with the best quality bionic eye we have in the market. It can detect any crystal or rock buried deep underground.”

My aunts face flashed before my eyes; her out of bed for the first time in weeks. The color returning to her cheeks. I checked my name into the data-pad he held out. And the rest was history.

What had felt likes weeks took only two hours and the procedure was complete and I was on my way home. My head throbs in the same rhythm of my footsteps. My arms sore from the vaccinations that had been injected with. For the first time in years my entire skin felt very clean; they had scrubbed me well before surgery. The desert wind against my skin felt different.

I walked slow. Wrapped around my waist hung a tightly wrapped bag of three kits. In my dress pocket was a bundle of money. I stop for a moment and slowly lift up my finger to touch the metal piece that had been stitched to half my face. I take a deep breath, clear my head and pull myself into focus. The bionic eye flicks on and rolls upward; I'm suddenly looking at the clouds passing by.

It turns suddenly to the ground, and I'm suddenly in awe of the underground city of sewage and trash being rolled by a long conveyor belt. Heading towards the direction I was heading; home.