Emily showed up to school one day with a knotty mushroom growing out of her scalp. It had a single eye that rolled around so much, that it was anyone's guess if it could actually see.
"Does it itch?" the school nurse said, her eyes magnified by her glasses.
"A little."
The nurse grasped the stem of the growth and the eye winced. So did Emily.
"Ow! Ouch!"
"Fine." The nurse shrugged and slapped her love handles. Itched her curly scalp. "Get back to class."
The eye of the mushroom followed along with Emily as she read her textbooks and listened to the teacher. Often enough, it blinked when she did.
Two days later, some small mushrooms began to push out of her neck.
Then out of the back of her hand.
The ones on her hand often stared up at the ones on her neck.
"What now? Do they itch?" huffed the school nurse.
"I feel really tired all the time," Emily peeped, her eyelids flickering, the eyes of the mushrooms intent on the nurse.
The nurse shoved a styrofoam cup of black coffee into Emily's hands.
"Here. Get back to class."
Three days later, there were caps growing out of Emily's shoulder. Her collarbone. Her left eyebrow. Each with eyes of irises of gold, green, sky blue, and coal black.
"How do you feel now?" The nurse sighed.
Emily's reply was a flapping rattle of phlegm. She could barely open her eyes.
The nurse tried to give her another cup of coffee. The mushrooms stared at it. The bitter liquid rolled out the corner of Emily's mouth.
Two days later, the bell rang for recess and Emily stumbled out.
The bell rang again. Emily didn't come back in.
Jessica was her best friend, a nut-haired girl with glitter on her freckles.
"Em? Em? Hey, the bell rang... Em?.."
The eyes of every clustered mushroom on Emily's body stared at Jessica, but Emily's eyes were shut, and still as a photograph.
YOU ARE READING
Grayspace
PoetryThis project is the author's exercise of methods using automatism as either the finished product or the basis for stories and poems. Nonsense, jarring images, and peculiar journeys woven from the stuff of dreams await. You might laugh. You might cr...
