Transmissions - Strange Short Stories

Iris

One day, when I was a young girl, I remember the town being particularly quiet and the square empty of all but one man.

He wore a dirty black pinstripe suit and purple velvet hat, shoes so polished I could see my own reflection smiling at me.

He was seated at a small desk, a few feet in front of a giant eye. On the desk I noticed an inkwell, fashioned like a tear drop.

His features changed and I struggled to commit them to memory. My eye was drawn to a parchment, semi covered by a dirty quill.

The parchment seemed to be alive with words, dancing and kissing. A silver vapour rose from the page as he furiously wrote.

I asked him what he was writing. He looked at me with all black eyes, punctuated with two tiny pin pricks of starlight.

'I'm writing a report for The Overseers'. Delicately cradling his teardrop inkwell, he rose from his seat.

He walked over to the eye and plunged his quill into its iris. A thick jet-black stream oozed from the wound, filling his inkwell.

'Who are The Overseers?' I asked. He showed me the parchment. At the top of the page a title began to form. It read: Invisible Invocation Rituals of The Unknighted Kingdom.

The man took my hand very gently. Leaning close he spoke to me in lavender scented whispers.

'You know how to look, but not how to see.' I tried to pull my hand away, but he increased his grip. 'Let me show you.'

He led me to the eye. Guiding my now unresisting hand, he pressed my fingers to the pupil. It softly gave way.

He let go of my hand. I continued to push until the whole of my arm was buried deep within its blackness.

The stranger smiled at me before gently dissolving into haze. I found myself alone in the square.

Cautiously, I stepped through the eye. It enclosed me in a blink.

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