Superglue Explosion

This may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever lived to regret. The water stings my eyes as I blink furiously, trying to see the sink below my head. As I continue to flip water haphazardly, I wonder what exactly superglue can do to unprotected eye-flesh. I imagine my ocular cells crying out in anguish as they perish— oxygen deprived and clutching miniscule chests— underneath a perfectly symmetrical droplet of adhesive.

Their screams hurt my ears and I rub my eye. I’m sure that’s not a good idea, but it’s just so damned instinctive. The water’s still running. I reach out to turn it off, but in my nearsighted closeness I notice the drain for the first time.

I guess I’m not blind, a hopeful voice in my mind pipes up. I tell it to shush; I’m thinking. The stainless steel has a grain to it, like the rings of a tree, but these lines mark age in a different way. They mark not years of growth but periods of mistreatment by heavy-handed steel wool and Comet during a tear-streaked rage. They mark the passage of rivers, lakes, and oceans down into the abyss.

I trace the spiraling downward path with my good eye and know without touching that the cool metal would feel glassy-smooth to my insensitive fingers, that blind no one could know the damage inflicted over the years. I imagine the whining squeak of my wet finger rubbing hard against the surface that would belie that silky pretense.

I splash my eyes again. Once more for good measure. Droplets outside the whirlpool cling to unseen ridges like abandoned survivors. I connect a few with my pinky nail, drawing them into each other’s amoeboid embrace, and watch them spiral down the drain with the rest. I can’t stand for them to be so lonely.