Her Eyes Are Dead: A Narrative Fiction

Her eyes are dead. She smiles and laughs and lives, but her eyes are dead, dead, dead. They flutter with a semblance of emotion when she laughs, a tight, reigned in laugh that sounds like plastic spilling from her pretty mouth. Sometimes her lids lower mechanically when her lips twist into a displeased frown. When she reads to Kazuo, her lips curve up with a light grin, but her eyes hold no recognition of what she’s reading, and her hands turn pages like a machine computes functions, mindlessly, perfunctory. Her hands too, they are cold, always. Even when she has just finished tending the fire, soot streaking her lively face (all except her eyes, always except her eyes), her hands are algid. It’s as though the rest of her is here, but her hands are in some

The indignant look on her face and the offended tone of her voice makes him swallow and feel just a touch guilty.
“No, just trying to be a good friend.” He says straight-faced. Her frown deepens just a touch and she opens her mouth to speak, but Renta cuts off the words with her own, fixing Jaskal with a look.
“So anyway, as I was saying about census…” Jaskal clicks his tongue impatiently and stands, draining his coffee.
“See you at lunch.” He says, tipping his head to them and bringing his mug up to the window.
§ § §
“I just don’t understand him. It’s like he doesn’t care about anything.”
“He cares too much, that’s the problem.” Aimee replies, sipping her tea.
“What do you mean?” Aimee shrugs.
“He doesn’t want to care, but because he’s human, he does, so he acts like- pardon my French- an asshole to compensate for it. It’s simple human psychology.” Renta sighs, propping her chin on her fists.
“I get it, I suppose.” She says quietly, staring at the gritty dregs of sugar and coffee at the bottom of her cup. “I just don’t like it. I’m sure that underneath all that bitterness and resentment is a heart of gold, but if kindness can’t drag it out, what