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Lidless Eyes That See

By Geneve Flynn

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We are silently going mad, the boy and I.

The first sign was when he brought me the red silk handkerchief. It was folded and tied like the most perfect furoshiki-cloth wrapping, as if he meant to give me something precious, something with meaning.

Here is what I found instead. Seven pieces of a broken denture, fragments of palate glistening pink as freshly chewed bubble gum, and wire that still shone gold, cradling teeth as jagged and yellow as fossilised popcorn.

With a wordless cry, I crushed them under my boot, grinding the molars to ochre pebbles and chalk. He did not seem to mind, and returned to picking his way carefully through the ruins of the supermarket.

A month ago, I found him in a playground, both of us slat-sided and ravenous. We stared at each other: a small, dark-eyed boy in a man’s too-large jacket, and me, a woman who had become nothing but dry bones. He didn’t say a word; whether the mutism was selective or inborn, it made no difference. No matter how much I questioned, cajoled, or tried to catch him unawares, he did not speak. At first, the disappointment hollowed me as powerfully as the endless hunger. I had been alone since the final days of the war. To have someone, anyone, to talk with, to feel some remnant of my humanity, would have been as much a boon as discovering an untouched cache of tinned peaches in an abandoned house. Before long, though, his simple presence proved enough, and I fell back into the habit of silence.

We learned to hunt. He was faster than I, and as a child, swifter to reclaim the animal instincts we have forgotten as a species. Often, he would take a rabbit or a snake with his teeth and be halfway through its neck before I caught up. The meagre game wasn’t enough and we spent our days hiking from one dusty town to the next, searching lonely houses that echoed with memories and darkened stores with shattered windows for anything we could eat. On the rare occasions we came across other people, his hackles would ripple, and he’d drag me to the ground, where we huddled until whoever it was had passed. I never questioned him; he had a fine nose for danger and knew what and who could be trusted.

Later that night, with nothing to show from the supermarket and hunger coring us both, we curled together in the parlour of a turn-of-the-century Queenslander at the edge of town, its rotting, creaking boards enough to warn us if someone approached. Any mattresses and blankets from the bedrooms had long been scavenged, and only the skeletons of small reptiles and hard pellets of rat scat remained. The chill crept up from the gaps in the floor and in through the glassless windows. A gum tree rustled its ghostly leaves outside; everything else was still. I shivered against his small form, but the boy seemed immune to the cold.

Tell me a story, I thought: a wish upon a star, nothing more.

To my surprise, he turned and studied me, his eyes like liquid mirrors reflecting the moonlight. A single considered nod, then he snugged back against me and fell asleep.

---

A quiet knock sounds at the front door, barely there, as if it didn’t really happen. Sunlight streaming through the windows. The day’s humidity and heat suddenly pressing against my skin.

The boy is gone, an empty space between my arms even though I had folded them around him in my sleep.

Across from me is the denture, whole and gleaming.

It sits inside a wooden bowl which has been nailed to the floor with a thick iron stake, about six inches in length and black with oxidisation. Around the false jaw, cracked plastic containers and toy fragments are arranged in the unmistakable shape of a human skull. There’s a nose, a chin, rudimentary ears, even wiry doll hair, but no eyes. Sweat springs on my upper lip and prickles my spine.

I creep to my feet and peer through the doorway to the darkened hall, careful to tread close to the wall. The boards protest quietly. The house feels empty apart from the facsimile mind behind me, watching my back with its vacant sockets.

It isn’t alive; I know that. I do.

It grins with pink gums and yellowed teeth. With a grunt, I rush forward and claw at the pieces of plastic and broken remnants that once belonged to children, hurling them into the shadowed corners of the room and out the window. I yank at the dentures but hiss, snapping my hand back.

Did they bite me?

No. It was only a sharp edge on the nail head. A cut jags across my palm. Blood wells. It’s deep. I really should get a tetanus shot; it wouldn’t do to die from being unable to eat. Laughter bubbles up my throat and fills my mouth but I swallow it down. I’ll have to go back into town to find something to bandage my hand. Perhaps the boy is already there, searching for food. He’s disappeared before. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes the whole day, but he always returns. He always finds me.

I glance at the set of teeth. They aren’t going anywhere.

---

The town is empty of people and things I can use. The shadows are long and my hand is a glowing throb by the time I try the school. It’s a long shot, but scavengers sometimes forget the first aid room and the teachers’ lounge. I check for signs of other people at the gates. Any footprints have been swallowed by red rocks and weeds. The gardens are overgrown and motionless; the carpark is threaded across with veins of sand. There are small sounds—the breeze whistling and quiet creatures scurrying away at my footsteps. I stop and listen hard but can hear only my own breath.

Out of habit, I go to the reception, as if I’m still a mother with children to collect. Brown leaves have accumulated at the front door and I’m held by this sign of neglect. I stare at them, willing them to go away. After a few minutes, I shake myself loose and prise the door open.

The first aid cupboard has been emptied, but I find a cracked leather handbag sitting beneath the front desk. Inside are a wallet, rumpled tissues that disintegrate at a touch, a packet of De-Gas, and two Band-aids with Disney princess patterns. There are several sweet wrappers, but no sweets. I lift the wrappers to my nose and sniff deeply. The lingering fruity scent only makes the hunger worse.

With the cut sealed as best I can, I head to the lounge to search for abandoned lunch boxes and stored fête supplies. The snacks that could survive the Queensland summer lunch-time heat are usually good to eat, even after all this time.

After half an hour of searching, I sink down onto one of the chairs. The perished cushion exhales a weary breath of stale air. My vision narrows to a point and I put my head between my knees. Where is the boy? Has he found anything? Will he come back to me? Maybe not this time. Perhaps it’s for the best.

I slide to the floor and lay, supine. Nothing more to do except stare at the cobwebbed ceiling and blackened walls.

I turn my head, then frown. Underneath the kitchen counter running along the side wall sits a squashed, faded, pink box-shape, as if it had been kicked there and forgotten in the rush to evacuate. I roll onto my stomach, crawl over, and reach for it. The material feels like plastic cloth against my fingertips. Heart stumbling, I swipe at it. It spins and wedges further under the counter. Spiders scuttle and shrink from my hand. Please, not redbacks. A huntsman could be roasted and eaten, and would only give a nasty bite, but a redback could kill. I force myself to go slowly, to snag the handle and draw, careful and measured, until the shape pops out.

A lunch box.

My stomach feels like it’s folding in on itself. With a low moan, I double over and pray. The zip sticks and slips from my fingers. I try again, and this time manage to open it. A tarnished fork rests next to a mouldy plastic container. Beside it, in perfect condition, is a bag of crisps. Chicken-flavoured. The packet is still bright yellow. I pluck it out and hold it up to the faint light from the window.

And meet eyes with a small girl, about ten, watching from beyond the broken glass. A gasp and a blur of dark hair as she bolts. I clutch the pack to my chest and scramble.

I try to call her to stop, but my words come out mushy. My mouth feels atrophied, my tongue nothing but a piece of confused meat between my gums. I go out and scan the unlit rooms and weedy gardens from where I last saw the girl. There! The pale circle of her face peeks from the window of room 3G.

With the packet held before me, I slowly inch forward. “Are you hungry?” I say, but by her confused expression, she doesn’t understand. It’s been so long since I spoke. Instead, I tear the corner of the foil packet. The aroma of grease and potato and faux-chicken rises into the air and my belly cramps. The girl tracks the packet as I take another step. I break off a small piece of crisp and eat. “Mmm.” It’s agony not to shovel the entire lot into my mouth. I shake the bag in her direction.

She creeps out from the classroom and wavers on the walkway, trembling like a wild hare.

“Want some? It’s okay.” Still garbled, but she nods.

I pluck a crisp and hold it out. Her nostrils tremble.

I smile, sunny and open.

With a yelp, she darts away.

“Wait!” I run after her but she’s vanished.

I search until the last of the violet light bleeds from the sky. I have to get back to the house in case the boy is there. Perhaps I can bring him here tomorrow, and he can track her. I know he’ll like her. I allow myself a nibble then carefully return the crisp to the packet and pinch it shut. I know he’ll like these too.

As I make my way back towards the edge of town, delight blooms in my chest.

The girl had made a sound.

---

Watchful silence wraps the house. The moon is full, so there’s enough light to see that the parlour is empty except for the wooden bowl still spiked to the floorboards.

The dentures are gone.

I can smell blood. And the boy, but he’s nowhere to be seen. The floorboards creak and groan as I check each room—the sun room, the main bedroom, the second room, the kitchen—heading deeper and deeper into the inky gullet of the house, smelling copper at the back of my throat and almost tasting it.

The laundry is a musty black space. There is only one place left to search. A child’s room at the end of the hall. The door is closed and covered in flaking paint.

A quiet knock, from inside.

I have to see. He could be hurt. The door opens with a sticky gasp.

Moonlight streams in through the grimy window, falling on a vaguely human, upright shape on the floor against a corner. Once again, the head has been rebuilt: nose, chin, ears, wiry doll hair, no eyes. Gold wire glints from the open mouth. The dentures smile down at the boy as the simulacrum cradles him in her arms. There are no legs. Only a boxy chest. The boy’s shirt and chin are black with blood. A throatless possum rests in his lap. The boy’s chest rises and falls slowly and steadily.

His eyes open and he clambers to his feet; the creation topples, pieces clattering across the wooden boards as the illusion of life disintegrates. I stare at him. What story is he trying to tell me?

He offers up the possum carcass, an expectant expression on his face. I show him the yellow packet. His face lights up. It’s like Christmas.

We risk a cooking fire in the sink of the kitchen out the back, and the smell of roasting possum—skewered on a wire coat hanger from one of the built-in cupboards—is almost too much to bear. I have to keep pushing the boy back from the flames. His hair curls and smokes in the heat but it doesn’t stop him from nosing in too close.

He snatches the hanger and opens his mouth to take a bite. The fire has burned most of the fur off, and the skin is charred. The flesh is still pink and oozing. Something shifts beyond the dark, empty window and his lips peel back into a noiseless snarl.

It’s the girl. She hovers at the edge of the light, sniffing. The boy drops the possum and tries to dart past me but I snag his father’s jacket and spin him towards me.

“Friend.” The word is difficult to manage. “Family.”

He shakes his head furiously and he twists, swift and uncatchable as a viper, and runs off into the night.

The girl has been inching around, her eyes on the dirt-covered roasted possum on the floor. Then I see fresh scuff marks and footprints in the strip of garden at the rear of the house in the flickering light of the fire.

A current chases down my spine.

Someone has been back and forth over this ground, dragging something through the dirt. The shoeprints are too big to be the boy’s or the girl’s.

The girl reaches for the hanger. I lunge forward and grab her wrist. She squeaks and thrashes against me. I snag the hanger and hold it out to her. She stills; saliva pools in the corners of her mouth. I give the possum a shake. She takes it and, frowning fiercely, tears a hunk off with her teeth. I touch my forefinger to my lips and point at the marked dirt. She nods and I lead her into the night after the boy.

---

We hurry along a side road and then a dirt track before it disappears into a sea of grass surrounding a farmhouse a few kilometres out of town. The corrugated roof is rusted out and one side wall leans in like the cheek of a toothless old woman. Something tromps past some distance to the right of the house. Could be a boar, could be a ’roo. Could be those who have been watching us. We need to get out of sight.

We high-step through the sharp blades of grass. Sometimes, I have to lift the girl to help her get clear.

The wooden stairs are spongy, but they hold when we hurry up and on to the porch. The door hangs askew on its hinges and I don’t bother trying to close it behind us. The noise will only announce our location. Sharp ammonia and the stink of decay hang in the air. The possum has been long discarded, hurriedly gnawed down to the bones by the girl while we walked. With any luck, whatever is outside will sniff out the remains and be happy with them.

The floor is rotten in parts and we have to be careful as we retreat into the last bedroom. A cloud shifts and light bleeds into the interior. Someone is in here with us.

Some thing.

It lies on the iron frame of a bed, now a body, arms, and legs laid out flat, made of broken, lost things. A shoe, a garden glove, a flattened metal bucket, a bent umbrella. There’s a nose, chin, ears, wiry doll hair. The dentures grin in the simulacrum’s jaw.

It now has eyes: twin pearls, the kind that children used to use to make necklaces for their mothers for the mother’s day stall at school. They gleam, silvery, out of the black sockets.

A woman. A mother.

What story is the boy trying to tell me? Where has he gone? Sometimes it seems he’s been gone for a very long time. Sometimes he’s here, right beside me. Inside me.

“Are you lonely?” The girl’s voice is sweet and soft, full of kindness.

I turn and stare.

She gives me a wavering smile. “Do you miss your family? I do too.”

It’s been such a long time since I heard someone else speak that it takes me a moment to understand her words. I nod and sink onto the edge of the bed. I would cry but there seems to be no more left of me. The girl creeps closer and worms onto my lap. I cradle her in my arms, gently, warily. Her body has a wonderful solidity and warmth.

“Is that why you keep making yourself a friend?” she murmurs against my chest. Exhausted, ready to relinquish her care to an adult once again, the girl grows heavy as sleep drags at her.

I blink, unseeing, over the top of her tangled, filthy hair.

No. The boy made the body, not me.

But as my eyes swivel towards the mannequin on the bed with aching slowness, the dark doors in my mind swing open. I meet the creation’s pearl eyes. Does it grin just a little bit wider as I reach into its jaws and pluck out the dentures? Does it cackle, then scream, as I slot them into my mouth, to find that they fit perfectly, that the mushy feel of my mouth disappears as I practise my bite, running my awakened tongue over my teeth, tasting the ghost of the boy on them?

My mouth floods with saliva as I run my gaze over the girl’s thin legs, her stick arms, the smudged patch of skin exposed by a rip in her shirt. Hunger drives through me like a black, oxidised spike.

No. Oh god, no.

Trembling, I place my hand over the pearlescent eyes and wait for the final knock on the door.

We have gone silently mad, the boy and I.