Mindless Sight

The madman was quiet, his worrisome silence infecting the observing doctors: it was lunch, but none of the three dared touch their food and so disturb the growing cancer. Half an hour before they were to return, and each second ticked away with a jarring jest of finitude, the regular tocks like a mad drumbeat driving, driving forward, irrevocable. And they would have to return, return and watch the madman sitting there, staring at them silently, a wealth of meaning in his eyes. But meaningless they all assured themselves, though none dared confer with another; meaningless, for he could not see them, they knew, not after what they had done.

The watch was to be sure that he was dead, as dead as they could make him, to be sure that not a sliver of his mind was left. Just killing him wouldn’t do it, they had reasoned, the knowledge had to be wiped away, his dreams had to be erased. But the eyes, his eyes softly reflecting the sterile, hospital light, followed them when the doctors moved about his room. A reflex. Automatic motor function. Nothing. Yet the eyes watched them. There was no mind left to see, just the eyes, watchful, awake, following them.

She couldn’t bear it any longer, and the jarring sound of her chair skidding across the lunchroom tiles startled her conspirators. Still without speaking, she rushed out of the portal, the un-closable archway leading into the asylum. The two followed, knowing. The meandering dead, the zombified patients perverted by pharmacy into sexless automatons, faceless drones, stood in their soft, off-white blue clothes, a fat and sweaty wall of interwoven flesh surrounding the madman’s dorm. As the three doctors rounded the corner, they were met by the eyes, nearly fifty pairs of eyes, and an ovulating silence.

The orderlies were soon about their work, and efficiently the eyes were herded away. All that was left were the quietly retreating footfalls and the door to the madman’s lair. The three approached. There was built into the door an opening, currently covered by a metallic sliding apparatus. She enclosed its little knob between her knuckles, and with a determined sigh, drew it away. There were his eyes, pressed against the door, staring out of this little rectangular hole. She jumped back into her two companions.

He shouted in meaningless syllables, “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

The dreams had returned.

related: Whispers