THE AGE OF EYES

The first eye, the eye that inaugurated the age, was the sulphur-yellow eye, a luminous ring floating in an overheated grey void, with an infinite pit in its center. Unlike the eyes to come it did not attract or repulse.

The yellow eye was blind; light could not enter it. I saw it when I closed my own eyes, when I prepared myself for a collision, when I lay down intoxicated. I saw it in the noontime sky and I saw it when I dug in the sand. When I saw larger eyes, oval eyes, seeing eyes and hanging eyes I often saw the yellow eye standing behind them, standing back, not obtruding.

The yellow eye was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It never frightened me unless I was trying to think of no eye at all; then it hung on stubbornly. Then I really could not stand it and I would scream into my pillow if I was in bed or into my hands if I was in the schoolyard or at the table.

Later, when the Age of Eyes had ended, I wondered if I had not made a proof of my touristic sensibility by regarding the yellow eye with such incomprehension. Zero understanding, you might say, and you would be right.