His face

It was not a remarkable face. Not particularly striking or handsome or ugly or ...anything, really. She would probably not have given him a second glance on another day. Except something had made her stop. She could not explain it, this sudden compulsion to pause in her steps and look at him. She was aware that she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk under the scorching sun, that even in the few seconds she had been stopped the heat of the pavement had begun searing her feet through the thin sole of her sandals. She should keep moving. Her makeup was going to melt off.

And yet, there she stood, staring at this unremarkable face before her, or what she could see of it anyway. He was sitting on a bus bench, head down, looking presumably at the small black box in his hands. A fringe of hair covered most of his downcast eyes. She wondered how he could sit here without burning up.

Just as she had decided to keep walking, he raised his head.

"Hi," he said.

His eyes were closed. She blinked. There was something odd about his eyelids. They looked…sunken almost.

“Hi,” she said, “What’s in the box?”

“My eyes.” He smiled and shook the box lightly so that she could hear something heavy thumping around inside.

“Your eyes?”

“Yes. You know how they say that the eyes are the window to the soul? Well, I don’t have a soul. In fact, I think I was born without one. When people look at me, they realize this. They see nothing, just emptiness. My mother could never look me in the eyes. So I removed them. I never wanted anyone to look into my eyes again. I couldn’t bear their expression when they realized there was nothing there.” He said this all matter-of-factly, like he was having a conversation about the weather. As he finished, he smiled, leaned forward, and shook the box again. Thump thump. A drop of sweat rolled from his temple down to his cheek.

She opened her mouth, paused, and closed it again.

“You removed your eyes,” she repeated stupidly.

“Yes. I took my pen knife one day and gouged them out. I couldn’t stand the sight of people judging me, you see. They looked into my eyes and saw nothing. And then they would step back to evaluate my face as a whole. You see, they tried so hard to understand how such empty, soulless eyes could be set within such an unremarkable face. They wanted to see something more…something definitely evil, perhaps. Maybe some pointed teeth, horns sprouting from my head.”

The bead of sweat dropped from the bottom of his chin and splashed onto the box. She imagined it dripping audibly. Drip. More sweat drops were forming on his face now, oddly solid-looking sweat drops. They rolled down his face to dangle from his chin.

“It’s hot out here,” she said.

“I wish people would look past my face, this plain face. See under my skin. If you could look into my eyes you would see...”

She squinted down at him. His skin seemed to be sagging under the weight of his sweat.

“We…we should move out of the sun. Maybe we can talk about this under the shade or inside somewhere—”

Drip drip drip. She broke off, mouth agape, transfixed by the many droplets of sweat glinting off his skin, the many droplets of skin-coloured sweat. The sun was sweltering. She should move. Her makeup was beginning to melt off. And yet, here she still stood.

“When I was younger, you see, I used to think if I looked hard enough, I’d find it. I used to think if I could just peel back the layers of my skin, people would see my soul buried there. You see, maybe it wasn’t me. Maybe it was just my eyes malfunctioning. So I took them out.” Drip.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I picked up my knife and I took them out.” Drip. Drip. Drip. His face looked diminished somehow. The beads of sweat were coalescing into ribbons, his skin drooping like a bulldog’s. Like molten wax.

“Your face…”

“Yes. Yes, my face. Never beyond the face. Never under the skin. You see, don’t you? How troubling it was for people, such an unremarkable face with such empty eyes.”

Drip drip. Globules of flesh crept down his sagging face, dangled from his drooping chin, and then tumbled down between his legs and onto the hot pavement below. Drip drip drip. His molten skin pooled beneath him, sizzling and evaporating in the blistering heat.

She stared, paralyzed by the dripping.

“You see,” he said, “the problem is, I’ve never been able to see it either, anything beyond me. No matter how hard I tried. So I gouged out my eyes. Emptiness can only ever see emptiness. If you could look into my eyes, you would see. But you do see, don’t you? DON’T YOU?!”

His lips oozed into his gaping mouth as his voice peaked. For a second, the melting, sodden mess before her seemed to bulge, like a gas bubble was forming beneath it. His skin gurgled, frothed. Then suddenly, everything gave at all once and collapsed in upon itself. His flesh spilled out in large, goopy drops, splashing onto the pavement, splashing and sizzling. Splashing and sizzling.

She screamed, shut her eyes, and wrenched herself backwards to avoid being hit by the liquefied skin.

As quickly as it had started, it was over. As the sizzling died away, she opened her eyes again. A headless torso sat on the bench, hands still clasped around the small black box. Strands of hair littered the bench and pavement.

For a long time, she stood there under the boiling sun, staring at the box. Gradually, she moved to stand over the torso. She bent down and pried the box out of the soulless, headless man’s hands. Slowly, she lifted the lid.

"And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche