There’s a Bug in Your Eye

   Yesterday I went on a walk with my best friend. It was 7pm after our families had both left our houses. It was about 80 degrees and it was golden hour. I have known her for 9 years. She’s short. And has long brown hair that I think is wavy if she applies the right products. New bruises from dropping colorguard rifles. Blue eyeshadow and a button up to match. Undiagnosed autism most likely. 

She tells me about her brother, who’s in film school and brought his roommate along. She also talked about her cousin who is freshly 19 and engaged. She says that they seem happy together, so she doesn’t really mind. I talked about the show I’m going to in 6 days and how nervous and excited I am. She talks about a dream she had the other night about Aerosmith. She dreams like nobody else I have ever met. She dreams in linear, vivid storytelling, with plot twists and character development. She writes them down and draws them out (she’s gotten so much better at art over the years).

We talk about Taylor Swift and try to justify our feelings about her music. We talk about marching band, and our first competition at the end of the month. We decide “we ball.” That’s been our mantra for the month of August.

We are nearing her house now, just one more street. A bug flies into her eye. She has an irrational fear of eyeballs and being buried alive. Also caves. She tries to feel for it. She asks me if I can get it out. I pick at her waterline and push the bug towards her tear duct so she can slide it out. That’s what I do with stray eyelashes. I guide her finger. She picks it out. I told her I could probably count the people on one hand that I would let stick their finger in my eye. I said I don’t think anyone has ever trusted me that much.

The last few minutes the sun is behind the trees and twilight has started to settle. We talk about dying. We talk about the specifics of our fears. I bring up the old drown vs burn to death argument (I choose drowning by the way, although sometimes I change my mind). She told me that if she dies she wants to know that she is dying. She told me on her doorstep that she doesn’t want to die in her sleep so that she can her stuff together before she checks out. She said she would rather be stabbed. I told her on her doorstep that I agree. I don’t want anybody to have to kick my door in after a week of not answering calls. To find me alone and decaying in my own house.