Staring at the Sun

Staring At the Sun



by Chook

         Frank's eyes started to build up with water. It seemed that they could not stand more than a few minutes of looking at the sun. Averting his sore eyes finally from the window to his left, he glanced around for something else to wile away this time looking at. He hated being so early for the first day of school. Within a couple more minutes, company started wandering into the room and finding their seats in a daze. Mostly morons, according to Frank. He looked toward the entrance, hoping to see a face that he recognized and liked.

         Time passed and more people came in, none of them particularly enjoyable company. As the room became more full of the same kinds of people, Frank could only think that this must be some sort of omen: sophomore year would be even worse than the year that had preceded it. Frank glanced back up at the clock. One minute left. If anyone worthwhile was going to enter the classroom, they were going to have to do it quickly. At that very moment when all things seemed lost, she walked in. Frank recognized her from the year before; they had had a class together briefly before her schedule had been changed. But... what was her name? As she sat down in the empty spot next to Frank, the answer to his question came to mind.

         "Hello, Kate," Frank said to her familiar beaming smile. As Kate greeted him back enthusiastically, Frank came to the conclusion that perhaps this year would not be so bad after all....




         The sun peeking out from the eastern December horizon was not enough to cause any damage to Frank's vision. He sat, staring through the window at the fragment of sun, thinking, waiting for class to start. As usual, Frank's bus had arrived at the school early, leaving him a whopping twenty-five minutes to sit in the empty classroom before his first class. Frank fiddled with the contents of his pockets briefly: his keys, ID card, jackknife, and wallet. However, he had nothing that could occupy his time any better than sitting around and thinking.

         On this particular day Frank decided to look back at the previous few months. They had flown by faster than any period in Frank's life ever had. This was thanks particularly to Kate. Every day he would look forward to the hour he got to spend talking with her. The most amazing part: she seemed to like talking to him as much as he enjoyed talking to her. It was perfect.

         The classroom filled with students in about the same order that it usually did. Kate sat next to Frank, they smiled and made a couple of jokes to each other. It was the usual exchange that Frank had come to cherish. However, on this day something unusual happened. After making a lighthearted comment about something or another, Kate turned and looked into Frank's eyes with her usual beautiful smile.

         Rather than instinctively turning away, Frank matched her gaze and looked right back at her large, dark eyes. She had such wondrous eyes! They remained in this awkward position for what seemed like an hour. Scrambling through his vernacular for something to say, Frank noticed something about Kate's eyes he had never seen before. He looked deeper into her eyes at something he sensed was there, beyond the reflection of the hanging fluorescent lights of the classroom, beyond the reflection of himself in her eyes: there was something there.

         What Frank saw was absolutely, wonderfully, beautifully... indescribable. It completely captivated him, this perfect image hidden deep within her eyes. He had no idea what it was, or whether it actually existed in a physical sense. What Frank did know, and knew quite well, was that this beautiful image was something he instantly wanted like he had wanted nothing before.

         The long moment eventually got too awkward for Kate, who turned away, leaving Frank staring at the space now occupied by her ear. Frank remained in a hypnotic half-daze for the rest of the day, his mind devoid of any thought not involving the vision.




         The sun no longer got up as early as Frank, he realized looking out of the window at the empty sky and the dark snow. Things were getting jumbled in Frank's mind. This was the last day of school before winter break, and he felt that he should be relaxing like everyone else. It was impossible though, all that Frank could think about was that...that... -he couldn't even think of a name for the vision. For the past few weeks Frank had seen it about once a day, each time when he and Kate spent a few moments of shared glances. He wondered whether or not Kate knew of the perfect vision she held in her eyes.

         Of course, considering the two weeks off in front of him, Frank would not be seeing the vision for a while. She sat down and they talked the usual talk. He desperately wanted to tell her that he wished to see her outside of school, but he could not manage to get it out right. Upon Frank making a joke, Kate turned around and gave him the all-too-familiar look that inevitably would lead to him seeing the vision. Frank ignored it for a second, trying to compose himself and say what he was going to say.

         "Look, Kate," he said, trying hard not to be distracted by that most wondrous vision dancing behind her iris, "Can... Can I...?" He could not finish. She smiled, her face filling with hope. "Can I..." At that moment, the image became too prevalent for Frank, and he succumbed to staring intently at it, there behind her eyes, the purpose in talking disappearing from his mind. "Oh, nothing," he finished absently. After a few seconds hesitation, then disappointment, Kate turned away from him unhappily. Had Frank been paying attention to the part of her not contained in her eyes, he would have noticed the look of sadness and letdown filling Kate's body and posture, he would have understood that she had wanted him to say exactly what he had set out to.

         Unfortunately, Frank's mind only filled with the brief glimpse of the vision he had seen, taking over all other thought processes going on in his mind. As the class-ending bell rang, reminding Frank of what world he was in, he noticed Kate's beautiful body walking away from him and realized he probably should have told her how he had felt about her. She was gone, and Frank would not see her -or the vision- until the next year.




         Upon returning to school after winter recess, Frank was in too much pain to look out the window at the sun. In fact, he was having trouble focusing on anything in particular. He had spent most of his winter break regretting his actions, or rather his lack of them, on that day.

         He was starting to physically hurt. He really needed to see that beauteous image soon, before he went mad with desire. He tried to imagine what it had looked like. After thinking for a few moments, he could not remember any particular geometric shape to it. All that he could remember about it was how very much he desired -no, needed- to see it.

         Frank opened his eyes and threw his fist at the nearest object, which happened to be the solid brick wall. As his eyes focused he noticed the amount of people around him and quietly sat down, eating the tremendous pain throbbing from his knuckles.

         Kate walked in just then, and Frank noticed she was smiling. Reinforced by her seemingly good mood, Frank focused and told himself that he would absolutely, without a doubt get across to her exactly what he had been thinking for so long. She sat down and the usual chit chat transpired, building up to the inevitable moment when they would really look at each other. Before he could be distracted by the expected vision, he said a silly comment as an introduction to what he planned to say next. Upon hearing it, she smiled and turned to look at him as she had done before.

         "You know," she said, "That's exactly the kind of thing that my boyfriend would say." With that, she smiled and went back to doing her homework. It took a while for Frank to take in all of what she had just said. Once the implications of this seemingly innocent statement were realized by Frank, he remembered to start feeling unhappy for himself again. He could not think of one thing to say to Kate, so he tried very hard to disappear for the rest of the day, which pretty much worked.




         The sky was overcast, and the lack of light seemed to reflect on the melting snow to produce an image darker and more gloomy than Frank could think possible. At least, that's what Frank saw through the foggy window.

         The only reason he had come to school was in hope that somehow, some way, he would manage to see Kate's eyes. He absolutely needed to see them. But how could he get her to show them? She seemed so disinterested in him recently.

         Frank had still not seen the vision since before winter break, and he was not feeling okay. He felt weak, as if he were starving, or having some sort of chemical imbalance, or pneumonia or... something. Frank also had started shaking for no reason at strange times. Most ubiquitous of Frank's symptoms was his anger, though. He was angry at himself for not accomplishing what he set out to do, he was angry at the sun for not shining brightly, and he was angry at everyone else in the world. He was angry at that vision -no, no, on second thought he still loved it. It was Kate that he was angry at, for not showing him the vision anymore. She had no right to give him a glimpse and then stop providing it all of a sudden. She held the vision in her like a prisoner that desperately wanted to escape.

         As Kate walked in, Frank racked his brain trying to think of some excuse to get a look at those eyes. "Hello Kate," he said. An idea came to him. "What's that in your eye?" he asked. She looked his direction for a moment and wiped at her eyes with her hand.

         "Did that get it?" she asked, smiling. This plan wasn't working.

         "Uh, yeah," he said, thinking of some other form of attack. "Staring contest?" he asked pitifully. This was his last idea. She looked doubtful for a moment, then upon seeing Frank's forced smile put on one of her own.

         "Sure," she said. As she started looking at him, Frank wasted no time searching her eyes for the vision. Deeper and deeper he looked. He was getting close, but he had little time. Just when Frank felt he could almost see it, she blinked. It was gone. She then smiled, congratulated him on his victory, and turned away. Frank's insides screamed and a shiver proceeded to rush through to his outsides. Concentrating with all of his might, Frank stopped himself from shaking and tried to relax. The day passed extremely slowly.

         That night Frank dug out his yearbook from the previous year. He flipped to Kate's picture and started examining it. He looked deeply into the dark splotches on the page representing her eyes, but could not see the vision. He tried looking at the picture from different angles and distances, but could not manage to make what he wanted appear. After an hour of concentrating hard on the gray-scale photo, Frank gave up and threw the yearbook across the room, whereupon it hit the wall and rebounded into his wastebasket.



         Frank slept in the next day, a school day. At lunchtime, he woke up with a great idea. He picked up his wallet, keys, jackknife, and money as he did every morning and left his house in the direction of the city bus stop.

         By the time Frank reached the school, classes were nearly finished. He waited outside for the twenty remaining minutes of the school day. Pacing back and forth impatiently by the entrance, he tried very hard to stop himself from punching the school's brick wall. After a few more minutes, he made a compromise with his anger and proceeded to kick the solid wall very painfully.

         The bell rang and the school immediately began to empty of loud students. Frank sifted through the crowd of people looking for the owner of those beautiful eyes. Upon finding Kate, he inconspicuously started following her. He knew that she walked home and hoped that his idea would work. The farther they walked from the school, the less people there were. After a few blocks, Kate looked back and noticed him, waving in recognition. Frank increased his pace until he was walking next to her.

         "Why weren't you in class today?" she asked. No answer came to Frank's mind. All he could think of was the distance between him and the image.

         "Kate," he said with a large amount of effort, " I need to see your eyes."

         "What?" she asked as she slowed her walking to a stop. She started to look scared. Frank looked around cautiously, and upon seeing no witnesses grabbed Kate by the arms and threw her to the icy ground. He followed this action by coming down on top of her.

         "Listen," he said. However, instead of listening she focused her attention on struggling, unsuccessfully. Frank had her arms and legs secured on the ground and she was unable to change that.

         "What's gotten into you Frank?" her trembling voice asked.

         "You tell me, Kate," he answered coldly, agitated. He held her head in place and tried to look into her rapidly moving eyes, just inches from his own.

         "Hold still," he said, "I need to see your eyes." After struggling for a moment more and finding it futile, she gave up and did as he said. Her eyes turned to look toward his.

         Frank focused deeply into them, searching and searching for the vision that so taunted him. After concentrating for a couple of moments he became impatient.

         "Show me what you showed me before!" he yelled.

         "I don't know what you mean!" she sobbed. He held her head close to his and pulled his eyes as close to hers as possible. Searching her glistening orbs, he could not manage to find even a hint of the elusive image. He tried for minutes, but making no progress he gave up and reached into his pocket for plan B.

         "I didn't want it to have to come to this," Frank said sadly as he unfolded his blade. Noticing the knife she screamed, trying with all of her might to get out from under him. It was useless though, his strength and position were far superior to her defenses. He covered her mouth with his free hand until she gave up screaming and struggling. "I'm not going to kill you," he said calmly, coldly, "I'm just going to free something, something that I deserve."

         Frank was absolutely one-hundred percent sure that he would find what he was looking for behind her eyes. As he brought the knife to her face he noticed she was crying. She was going to make this difficult. He laid the knife on the ice next to her head and used his fingers to wipe her tears away. He took one last glance at her eyes and saw nothing, nothing but fear.

         As he wrapped his right hand once again around the knife lying sideways next to her face, Frank saw something. In the smooth reflective metal that was the side of his knife, he saw the reflection of his own enraged face. It wasn't just his face that Frank saw though. He saw his own brown eyes. Bringing the knife closer to his face to get a better look at the reflection, he saw something else. Deep inside the image of his own eyes was something grand. What Frank saw was much like what he had seen in Kate's eyes, being there, but not having any real characteristic appearance. However, there was a quality to what he saw in his own eyes that suddenly startled Frank, something that frightened him.

         Frank remained in place for some time, staring at his own reflection. His grip on Kate loosened as the realization of what he was doing came rushing to his head.

         Seeing an opportunity, Kate wasted no time in freeing her arms. She looked momentarily at Frank and the knife he was so entranced with and decided against grabbing and stabbing the knife deep into his stupid face. Instead, Kate kicked him powerfully in the groin, rolled him off of her and ran home.

         Frank was on his back now, and he heard Kate's footsteps on the snow trailing off into the distance. What had he been thinking? Upon seeing the vision in his own eyes, he had completely forgotten why he had so desired that in hers for so long. Seeing it was no longer worth anything to him, let alone worth harming someone for. Frank felt like a crazy, screwed up, lunatic -which, coincidentally, he was.

         As the tremendous pain between his legs subsided, Frank was able to concentrate on other things, like the fact that he was staring directly into the sun. His eyes were starting to hurt, but Frank did not care. The sun was beautiful, and it continued to burn a spot into his retina.







(winter 99-00)