Don’t read any further. Please.

Outside welcomes me. The sun warms the sleeves of my jacket. A playful wind greets me by running through my hair and kissing my skin. It’s such a nice day for tragedy.

The sounds of the hospital fade behind me until the slow beeping of Mason’s heart monitor is just a ring in my ears. The image of his face, bruised, wrapped in white linen settles underneath my eyelids. I stumble on the sidewalk, looking for a place alone, away from the whooshing of the oxygen machine. I follow a gravel path to an open, but secluded, garden with flowers, bees, and small trees. The path ends at a circle of benches with a stone water fountain in the center. I crash on a bench and burrow my head in my arms.

“Oh god,” I cry.

I stay there, enveloping myself in my makeshift darkness. It’s just the privacy I need to panic and release.

“Oh god,” I say again, but this time it comes out as soft as the water trickling in the fountain. I take a shuddering breath. It’s weirdly quiet now. I hear everything. The excited buzzing of the bees pollinating the flowers, the slight crinkle of the budding leaves, the airy gasp of my breathing, the chopped and screwed beating of my heart. The hair on my arms raise.

I unfurl my arms and wink into the sunlight. I’m being watched. That abstract, creeping feeling of wandering eyes settles over me. I stand, sweeping my gaze across the garden. When I don’t see anything, my eyes turn to the sky, as if God could be watching me panic over my brother’s imminent death. I want to throw a rock at him, but it wouldn’t reach the pearly gates. When I turn my gaze again, an elderly man is standing next to me, looking into the sky as well. I jump away, making him look at me in surprise and chuckle.

“Didn’t mean to scare you, dear. ‘Was just curious as to what you were starin’ at.”

“Ah,” I laugh. “No one, um, nothing specific. I didn’t hear you walk up.”

The man smiles again. His presence is gentle. He takes an unassuming stance beside me, taking off his worn corduroy poor-boy cap and pressing it to his chest. His face turns back to the sky and the clouds reflect in his dark brown eyes.

“Do you have someone here?” he asks. I hesitate, not wanting to say the words out loud.

“My brother was in a car accident.”

He nods and stares at the sky, watching the clouds turn.

“How about you?” I ask.

“Me,” he answers. “I’m dyin’. Somethin’ with my heart, or my blood, or my skin. I’m not quite sure anymore.” He grins at me. His warm brown face is spotted with wrinkles, moles, and freckles. I show him a little smile, his grin infectious.

“I don’t mean to interrupt you.” He raises his hand, showing me The Great Gatsby. “I came to read my book away from my wife and kids. They won’t leave me alone.”

I chuckle, and he clarifies.

“I mean, I understand why. I would be the same way if it was my wife. But I’m tryin’ to make it to thirty.”

“Thirty?” I ask.

“Thirty times cover to cover. First read it in eighth grade and then a few more times between then and now,” he explains and waddles to a bench across from mine. He groans as he sits.

“Oh, okay. I’ll leave you to it then. It was nice to meet you,” I say.

“Likewise, dear.” His nose dips into the book pages. For some reason, I can’t tear my eyes from the classic cover. The golden city shines against the blue background. The iconic eyes watch over the city from the sky. They seem to be looking at me. Looking through me. I tear away from it, walking out of the garden and to the parking lot, trying to shake off the feeling that I’m being watched.

*

The telephone poles and street signs blur around me. I can’t watch Mason lie in the hospital bed anymore, as much as I know Mom would appreciate my company. As an excuse for my cowardice, I determine to find Lia, the youngest of the family.

I focus just enough not to hit the back of the car in front of me at a red light. The radio station is incessant white noise until the speaker says something that grabs my attention. I turn the volume up, recognizing the voice of my favorite conspiracy podcaster.

“So, what you’re saying sounds a lot like a scene from The Matrix,” Eric Veher comments. He’s interviewing a professor from Duke. The professor laughs.

“Apt comparison, but not exactly what I’m saying here, Eric. I’m just posing the question. If our lives were just simulations, what would that mean to the simulation creator? Is there a button one could push, a command someone could say to stop the simulation? To pause everything?”

“And what would that mean for the people in the simulation? Do they just cease to exist for a moment? Or would they fall into a trance akin to sleep?” Veher adds.

“After all, sleep is the closest thing to death. And if pausing the simulation is the step before stopping it altogether–“

“To pause it is sleep. To destroy it is death,” Veher finishes.

I turn the volume down and sit in silence as I finish the drive to the house, my mind turning over the idea of death: a life, vibrant and full, ending at a metaphorical push of a button or the smashing of one car into the side of another. The glass windows splintering and cracking, spreading and splashing inside the car like water, slicing like a knife.

When I reach our childhood home, I go directly to Mason’s old room, my sister-sense tingling. Lia sits on the side of his bed facing the window. When I get closer, I see her clutching his pillow.

“Is he still…” Lia asks, trailing off.

“Yeah,” I answer.

“Good,” she whispers and presses her face into the pillow.

I sit beside her. She bobs into me as the bed sinks and bounces.

“How did you get here? Your car isn’t in the driveway,” I ask.

“I walked.”

She doesn’t elaborate at first, so we sit in silence.

“I was scared to drive,” she murmurs.

I can’t respond. Instead, I tighten a blanket around us and hold her. We watch the sun fall from the middle of the sky to the horizon. I shiver, a weird sensation overcoming me again. I turn towards the door, half expecting someone to be staring at me from the hall. I turn to the window, scanning the sidewalk for nosey eyes. I feel exposed and uncomfortable.

“We should go,” I say.

She clutches the pillow as we exit the room.

*

Mom agrees to leave Mason’s side for a quick dinner break, so I pick her up at the hospital with an apology on my lips.

“I didn’t mean to leave you alone,” I say as she settles into the passenger seat.

She smiles and pats my arm. “I understand. Plus, you found Lia!” She reaches into the backseat and squeezes Lia’s knee.

“Also, I met a very nice man that kept me company in the cafeteria.” She shuffles around, pulling a book from the side of her seat. “He asked me to give it to you,” she explains as she hands me the worn The Great Gatsby. I take it, gingerly turning over the book and thumbing to the first page. There’s a list of dates scrawled there, the first recorded in 1956 and the last one today.

“He made it to thirty,” I say to myself, nodding with pride.

“I thought it was unusual, but I’m glad you know what he was talking about,” Mom says.

I turn the book back around to the front cover, the eyes meeting me again. I stare out the windshield. The sky almost matches the blue on the cover of the book. I try to look past the trees, buildings, and clouds and into the darkness. I feel like I’m meeting something’s, someone’s gaze. I clench my jaws and strain my eyes further. The conversation that has resumed in the background draws me out of my concentration.

“He gave you a book? How nice,” Lia says dryly.

I start to insult her, but staring into the dark night sky ahead of me, I think against it. A shiver slithers from my neck to my back. My mind is alert against eyes that I can’t see. I shake off the persistent sensation.

“It was important to him,” I say, hoping my straightforward tone would silence her.

“Okay. Now I know what to give you for Christmas,” she mocks.

I sigh and shake my head.

“Books are like tiny worlds,” I explain. “You can peer into it and experience life from the character’s point of view. You can travel, fight, and die. But, most importantly, when you stop reading, the book stops. It waits for you to come back, inviting you to resume your journey again.”

She shrugs.

“He gave me his world,” I say.

When I don’t hear a response, I glance at Lia in the mirror. She’s moved to the middle seat and she clutches the pillow again. When I look back at Mom, her eyes are closed and she leans her head on the window. I start the car, making sure to drive slow for both of their sakes.

*

Mason went into surgery, so we wait in the waiting room. We chat and joke half-heartedly for hours, but our words cease when the doctor comes into the room. He looks at our chairs, our feet, the empty takeout boxes on the end tables, everywhere besides our eyes. Lia slowly looks up from her phone, her hand reaching for the pillow she’s brought with her. Mom straightens up and intertwines her fingers. Her nails dig into her skin, making the skin around it wrinkle with tension. The doctor stops in front of us. He focuses his eyes on his clipboard.

“Mason is awake, but there’s nothing we can do for him. You can follow me to say your goodbyes.”

No one moves. My heart thunders in my chest, almost like it wants to speak. It wants to tell the doctor to look me in the eyes and repeat his statement. Look me in the eyes and then tell me there’s nothing else you can do. I stand, pushing my chair back. It catches the attention of the doctor, and his eyes are forced to look into mine. I hold his gaze, daring him to look away. I know he’s seen Mason. I know he held the scalpel. I know he’s dug around the insides of my brother. And now he’s resigned to go on to another patient. But before he can escape, he has to tell us that he’s given up.

My hands tremble. I feel someone graze my fingers that have tightened into fists. I shake them off. I’m angry. I’m angry at the doctor who refuses to look away from my tearful eyes. I’m angry at Mom for staying silent. I’m angry at Lia for holding onto that stupid pillow like a thumb-sucking child. I’m angry at Mason for driving.

I break away from the doctor’s eyes, my sight blurred with tears. As they dribble down my cheek, I look at Mom and Lia, shake my head, and stride past the doctor and out the doors.

I plead with myself to stop running away. Mason doesn’t have long, and I’m throwing a tantrum. But I can’t turn my feet back. I keep pushing forwards, past the flowers, past the bees, past the benches and the fountain. When the path ends, I stomp through the grass. Then I stop. I collapse. I bury my face in my hands.

Then I look behind me. I rub my hand down my arms, smoothing out the goosebumps. The sensation is so strong. I stand, preparing to fight my stalker.

“Where are you?” I whisper, scanning my surroundings. I spin, making eye contact with everything around me.

“Where are you!” I scream. My hands shake. My sight blurs. I look up, my tears smearing the stars.

I wipe my eyes and concentrate. Without the sun shining, in the moonless sky, I can see better. I can see farther. I look into the depths of blue. I search.

“Where are you,” I mutter as I crane my neck. I fall to my bottom. Then to my back. My eyes trace the sky, looking for a figure. An angel. God himself on his throne. Then I close my eyes. When I open them, I scream.

An enormous eye stares back at me. Its pupil is the darkness of the night, shifting whenever I move. The lighter parts of the sky are around the pupil. It’s the iris and the sclera. The corners of the eye are at the horizon. I sit up, scrambling back to get away. Then I curl up, wiping my eyes on my knees. I think I’m crazy. I know I am. I’ve lost it.

When I look back, the eye is still there. After assuring myself that it can’t attack me, I steady myself to look for the other eye. When it blinks, the sky briefly becomes pure black and then opens back up into deep blue. I scream and cry and curl back up. When I’m ready, I steady myself and look up again. I turn around. If the first eye is due North, then the second is due East. I’m caught in the middle between them. I stand and start to stumble back towards the hospital, then I stop. I whirl around and face them.

“What do you want?” I demand.

They just stare at me. Like they are waiting. I step forward and they shift slightly. I take another step, and they move. When I do it again, I notice they are slowly moving from left to right.

“Stop,” I command. They just shift further to the right.

Even when I run to the left, they don’t look at me. They float further right until they reach a point, then they refocus back to the left and trace their path back to the right.

They are reading.

I look at myself, expecting to see words written on my skin. I shiver when I find nothing. I look back towards the hospital, the lights glowing in the distance, then back at the eyes.

“Are you reading–me?” I say to you. You remain silent. Your eyes just float slightly to the right.

Then left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

“Pay attention to me!” I scream.

I stand still as the eyes float back and forth. I’ve heard of stories where people use delusions as a coping mechanism, and I consider that I should run back to the hospital and enter myself into a psych ward. And this eye, I can’t touch it, and it doesn’t seem like anyone else notices it. But my sixth sense, that ever-present creeping chill shadows my doubts. This feels real. This eye is celestial, ethereal, just as a part of the sky as the dark clouds that drift with the wind, or the moon that illuminates their irises. They are confident, steady, reading at the horizon. The Gatsby man dipping into his book, patiently and intently reading flashes into my mind.

When the eyes come back to their position to the right, a realization dawns on me.  Looking back at the hospital, I have an idea. I look at you again.

“If you stop reading, does that mean I stop existing? Or does my world just become still? Or is it just everything at once?”

You don’t answer. At least, I can’t hear you.

“Okay, just listen to me. Stop reading, and never come back. But don’t ever shred this, shred us. Don’t delete us or whatever. Don’t throw us away or let us be destroyed. Then,” I pause, hoping I’m getting this right.

“Just stop reading and–and then we can sleep. We can sleep in peace. Mason can live. Mason will live.” I pause, taking a breath and nodding in resolution. “Deal?”

I offer my hand out to you, but you can’t take it. I pull my hand back.

“Okay, now stop reading. Just, for my sake, stop.”

I look you in the eye. Mine are tired and wavering, blurred with tears, but I focus on you.

“Thank you.”

---

Jada Dorsey is a third-year student at Washington University with a double major in creative writing and secondary education. She is a know-it-all, which means she writes because she loves to hold her reader’s attention, and she loves to teach also, presumably, to get more attention.