The Eye

He received another rejection email from another job. But this email had an unprecedented effect. Halfway through reading, the young man began to feel his brain pulsating against his skull. The pain in his temples quickly blurred his vision. Seconds later, the headache subsided. He rushed over to the bedside table, grabbed the pack of Marlboro Reds, and flung open the kitchenette window where he lit his cigarette. The homeless were camped out by the bridge with the cold breeze carrying the stench of their tents to the young man’s nostrils. The street dogs were fetching whatever they could find out of the trash cans. While the young man was accustomed to all of the above, what caught his attention halfway through one of his drags was that the regularly graffiti-smeared buildings across from him read something new; in great, big, lightning-font letters, the graffiti read, “The Eyes Are Alive!”

He took the last drag of his cigarette then tossed the butt in one of the dishes before planting himself in his undone bed. After a gasp, he scrambled around in search of his phone, which was buried underneath the clothes beside him. Before he could think about what to use the phone for, an assortment of lives were reflecting onto his eyes. He naturally scrolled through their fancy cars, their large homes, their rare dog breeds, and the occasional bite-sized criticisms of the wealthy. While the frustration festered, it was not until he landed on a familiar face that his eyes began to burn. The sight of his previous colleague sent his mind sprinting. It was this colleague, the CEO’s son, with whom he had conceptualized an application that would automatically manage people’s finances and investments. But, before he knew it, the ex-colleague had already founded the enterprise with his rich father’s money, leaving the young man stuck in the tech-company where they had met.

One of the post’s many slides presented a video of the ex-colleague announcing the sale of the application for ten million dollars. The next slide showed him and the young man’s previous love interest in their wedding gowns with a new house and a Bentley as the photo’s backdrop. The pulsating of his brain returned, this time louder and stronger. The phone fell from his hand as he clasped his head. But seconds later the pain had vanished again. He then jumped up, grabbed his keys and coat, and scurried out.

________

As the young man walked the streets, he saw the fine-dining restaurant he had always wanted to try but couldn’t afford. There, he observed a formally dressed owner of a fluffy white poodle feeding his dog half of the steak he had ordered. The headache struck again then quickly dissipated. He continued on his way, escaping the scene.

Finally at the park, he sat in his favorite spot by the water. It was quiet and secluded. And for a moment the sound of the wind and the sight of the skyline’s reflection in the river soothed him. But, this brief blissful moment was soon interrupted by the approaching dress-shoe footsteps on the stony path and the haughty mumbles of proud men. He recognized their voices. He used to work with them at the tech-firm.

“Did you get the raise you asked for?” one of the haughty men inquired.

“I didn’t have to ask! After they fired all those employees, they handed out raises to everyone that made the cut! And they were generous, too!”

The young man watched the entourage walk away leaving behind their chuckles and giggles. He then swayed the once again troubled gaze back to the river in search of that blissful moment. But, before he could inhale the fresh air, the pulsating returned, this time unbearably. He clasped his temples and tried to groan the pain away, but to no avail. The headache possessed him until he began to spasm and violently shake on the ground while a gooey green fluid trickled down his mouth before he fell unconscious.

_______

Hours later as the sun began to set, the young man awoke in shock with his cheek soaking in this green fluid. He wiped his face with his sleeve, climbed to his feet, and sped home.

Upon arrival, he picked the phone off the ground and dialed. Three rings later, the friend answered.

“My guy! Been a while! You caught me at a good time, too! I just finished my shif-”

“I passed out,” the young man interrupted.

“Uh-You passed out? You’ve been drinking again?” the doctor joked.

“What? No! I fainted! I’ve been having these intense headaches. I’ve been ignoring them, but this time I fainted and woke up in a pile of this…green…fluid. It came out of my mouth.”

“Oh, uh, ok…” the doctor friend continued. “How long were you out for? A-and what’s the texture of this green fluid?”

“A-a few hours… I think… It was light when I passed out and sunset when I woke up.”

The doctor paused before continuing.

“And the fluid?”

With his right index finger, the young man swiped some of the liquid off his sleeve and squeezed it against his thumb.

“Sticky… and thick.”

“What did you eat today?”

“N-nothing. Just some leftover salad … and some mango juice.”

“Sounds like you just vomited the salad you ate.. And the headache may be the result of you underfeeding yourself. Take some multivitamins, eat something and drink a lot of water. Alright?”

The young man remained silent.

“Hello?” The doctor repeated.

“A-alright, yes. Th-thank you.”

A short pause ensued.

“I was kinda hoping you were calling to check up. But I’ll take what I can get… Anyway, you rest up and we’ll talk later.”

“Alright, thanks… Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it. Talk soon.”

The young man dropped his phone on the bed then walked over to the bathroom where he washed the residue of the green liquid off his cheek and removed his soaked clothes. One last rinse before taking a long look at himself in the mirror. Something didn’t feel right. That green liquid… he inspected his clothes again. That couldn’t be food.

He exited the bathroom and grabbed his phone once more before sitting down on the edge of the bed and searching for answers. He typed up the symptoms he experienced - headaches, fainting, gooey green liquids - and quickly found a recently formed comment thread about precisely the same topic on an obscure platform. As he read through the reports, one comment caught his eye:

“Maybe I’m tripping but since this happened to me، anyone I look at a certain kinda way gets kinda f****d up.”

Followed by another:

“People keep breaking things when I look at them!”

And another:

“I keep hurting people without meaning to!!”

Until finally he read the following:

“This is new and serious. Message this number for further instructions: 0000 - 8888 - 0000.”

He clicked on the number and was instantly redirected to an unknown messaging platform on which he received the following:

“Please do not panic. We need you to remain calm and keep your head down. Our address is here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/BVwvPuLJfr8mSWW3A

Come straight over and try your best not to look at anyone until you arrive.”

But he quickly closed the messaging platform and dismissed the coincidence as some niche scam. It must have been vomit.

Before laying in bed, he swallowed one of the expired multivitamins he had in his bathroom cabinet. Failing to sleep, he instinctively scrolled through the lives of others until again stumbling upon a post by the same ex-colleague, this time of him announcing his spontaneously decided 80-day trip around the world with his new wife, an adventure he themed after the book; ‘Around The World in 80 Days’ by Jules Verne.

The young man gripped his phone so firmly that it slipped and banged his forehead. He then snatched the phone and hurled it across the room. After a sigh of contempt, he shut the lights along with his burning eyes.

____

The young man awoke this morning to the sound of his phone ringing. Yet again, he found his cheek in a pond of the green fluid. Upon feeling the cold wetness, he sprung up and wiped his face with the blanket. He paced over to his phone but missed the call by the time he found it. He saw there were 20 other missed calls from the same individual and quickly called back. When his friend answered, there was no time for greetings:

“Where were you?! I must’ve called 100 times!”

“I-I was asleep. What’s the matter?”

The friend sighed.

“What’s going on?! You’re stressing me out!”

“It’s…Mansour…He died. Mansour died last night.”

“Mansour? What do you mean? He’s been gloating online with posts about traveling and marriage and selling the company.”

“Food Poisoning. You know about his immunity problems. Paralytic Shellfish Poison they called it. And he died.”

“Food poisoning?”

“I know, it’s…Look, I know you two had your…issues over the company… And what he did was…. We all know what you thought of him… But, he’s dead now. Come to the funeral. For her. We know what you think of her, too.”

The young man froze for a moment. His gaze shifted to the green liquid on his bed.

He then put the caller on speaker while he searched for the comment thread he had found last night:

“Maybe I’m tripping but since this happened to me, anyone I look at a certain kinda way gets kinda f****d up.”

And then back to the obscure message:

“Please do not panic. We need you to remain calm and keep your head down. Our address is here:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/BVwvPuLJfr8mSWW3A

Come straight over and try your best not to look at anyone until you arrive.”

“Hello? You still there?”

“Y-yes, hey. Look, I’ll call you back.”

He hung up and clicked on the location link, which displayed a 20-minute walking distance. So he threw on black pants, a black jacket, a cap, and barged out of the apartment.

_____

The young man walked hurriedly, phone in hand, compulsively checking the directions until his eyes were distracted by some other young men playing football, one of whom was skillfully dribbling the ball. The young man was reminded of when he almost qualified for the national team before his chronic knee injury. He focused intently on the player’s impressive moves. But, a moment later an opponent stepped on the player’s leg and a bone protruded through his skin. The player fell to the ground, clasping his leg as he yelped and cried.

The young man’s eyes widened. He lowered his gaze and scurried onward.

He then stopped at a traffic light where he was joined by a stranger holding a brand new phone, which perfectly lined up beside his older, crustier model. Suddenly, the stranger’s phone fell to the ground. When he picked it up, his mosaic face was staring back from the shattered screen. The light turned green and the young man hurried away.

Now at the meeting point, he looked around suspiciously. He rang the bell and a second later, he heard the buzz. He pushed the door hesitantly, but once inside eagerly climbed the stairs until he found an open door. After a few careful steps towards it, two large men appeared behind him and pasted a cloth to his face while their rough arms engulfed him tightly. His vision blurred and the world turned to black.

______

As he awoke, the young man opened his eyes to nothing. It was dark as he gradually realized his arms were tied behind the back of the chair and his eyes were blindfolded.

“Where am I?!” he insisted.

“What are you doing here?” a woman’s voice firmly responded.

“The map led me here. Th-the location! There was a link!”

“When did it start?”

“What?”

“The eye!”

“Eye?!”

“When did the headaches and the green fluids start?”

“They… yesterday.”

Silence ensued for a moment as the woman gesticulated to one of her colleagues in a lab coat.

“Listen. We’re about to administer an injection. It will calm you down and weaken the eye. Then we’ll remove the blindfold and talk. Okay?”

“What? No, I-” but before he could finish protesting, the needle had already penetrated his neck.

The relaxant took immediate effect. His muscles loosened like pillows, the fear evaporated, and his mind melted. The colleague proceeded to remove the blindfold and the young man finally saw them. There were three: the woman, who stood directly across from him, and the two colleagues who presumably chloroformed and restrained him. Behind them on the walls was an assortment of palm-shaped amulets, eye-shaped amulets, Quranic verses from Surat Al-Falaq and Ayet Al-Kursi in Arabic, as well as Psalm 91 in Latin, and Shema Yisrael in Hebrew. There were other obscure scriptures the young man couldn’t recognize.

“Who are you? What did you give me?” he slurred.

“A very controlled dose of opium. Far as we know, it’s the only drug that can periodically numb the eye without inducing unconsciousness.”

“Who are you?”

“We’re scientists. Epidemiologists.”

“What am I doing here?”

“You’re… infected… with what we’re studying.”

“What… infected… with what?”

“The eye.”

She saw the confusion on the young man’s face and sighed before continuing.

“The eye… The Evil Eye.”

“B-but… that’s just -”

“Superstition? Well, it’s not. It was. But, now it’s real.”

The opium was slowly wearing off.

“I don’t understand,” the young man stated more firmly.

She avoided his gaze.

“Neither do we. Not entirely… But we know it’s a neurological anomaly - Patterns… mutations… And, it’s infectious. But, not through human-to-human contact… It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

“How? How is it infectious?” the young man asked. The woman took a moment to search for the words.

“It’s... this… constant force-feeding of envy… They wanted it to push people. To produce more. But, it just created a new branch of epidemiology. It’s digital. And neurological.”

A silence filled the room before she continued.

“The first symptoms are these sharp, short-lived headaches. Then, some green liquid falls out of the mouth. That’s how it starts.”

The young man’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

“Has your eye struck anyone yet?”

Again, the young man was unable to respond. She sighed.

“We need to know how far it’s gone!”

In silence, they waited. The young man tried to reach a conclusion as quickly as they expected an answer. Has he imagined hurting people? Wished them ill? Thought they deserved loss? Thought it just to level the playing field? Or strip others of what they have taken? Has he wished these people dead?

Yes… he has. He did.

“Do you have a cure?” the young man asked.

“No…we’re still trying to understand this… All we know is it’s spreading.”

“The comment thread… there are others? Like me?”

“Y-yeah. So far, around 1342 that we know of. And… we’ve been so desperate, we’ve got amulets, religious texts… we even have an exorcist on our team.”

“Are you the government?” the young man inquired.

“No…”

“Who are you then?”

“Someone hired us.”

“Who?”

“Someone… with something to lose from all this.”

“What do you want from me then?!” he demanded, his vigour now having returned.

The woman gestured to the colleague who scurried over holding a thick document. The colleague then placed the document on the table in front of the young man who extended his neck further to obtain a clearer glimpse.

“We want to cure you,” she said suspiciously.

The young man looked up.

“You said there was no cure!”

“Yes, we need to study you. You and those like you… And you’ll be compensated generously.”

“Compensated how?”

“Just tell me what your eye has done first.”

The young man remained silent for a moment while the events of this morning revisited his mind.

“My eye… I’m not sure if it was my eye, but…someone died.”

The woman and the colleagues stole concerned glances from one another.

“Died?”

“Y-yes…but…I’m not sure..”

She gestured to her colleague who sped over to untie the young man as she placed a pen atop the document.

“Sign.”

The young man hesitated. She sighed.

“I need you to sign,” she insisted.

He then picked up the pen and placed the pen on the paper.

“I killed him?”

The woman looked at him only to find an infectious remorse.

“N-no. No, you didn’t. Look, this is something unprecedented. We don’t understand it… Just sign and - and we can fix this.”

She then gifted him an affectionate smile, which likewise infected the young man. He signed.

“Now what?” he asked curiously.

The young woman then nodded to her colleague who instantly injected the young man with another heavier dose of opium. This time quicker than the last, the young man sunk into the chair.

“Now, we begin.”