BENEATH THE LIDS
by Brian D. Holland
(Genre: Horror - Satire) © 2004
(Originally published in New Camp Horror - Vol. 2 Issue 8, Dec 2004)
What do you see when your eyes are closed?
The answer might depend upon what you saw right before closing them.
It can leave an impression.
Other than complete darkness, you might see spurts of white light in the form of lines, circles, or even whole images. A good imagination is helpful, because you don't actually see anything significant at all. It’s similar to the Rorschach Blots once used by psychiatrists. “What do you see here?” the shrink may have asked, holding up a card for you to view. After enlightening him with your thoughts on the odd images, he would evaluate your answers—and then decide whether or not you’re nuts.
It’s on the same idea ... the images that is. The eyes and the imagination work together, perceiving and creating.
* * *
Jonathon had fond memories of when he was young, sitting around with his best friend Tommy, eyes closed. They took turns telling each other what they saw within the depths of the black nothing. They didn’t take it serious, of course, as they were just two young boys utilizing imagination on a boring, rainy afternoon.
Years later, however, after he had grown into a mature adult, the same exercise became frighteningly real for Jonathon.
Though the occurrences were infrequent at first, they increased as time went on.
It would happen when he was resting in his favorite living-room recliner. It would happen in bed most of all, during the night or early in the morning. It even boldly occurred on his way home from work one night. He had yawned, prompting his tired eyes to close from the repetitive boredom of the lengthy expressway, and there it was again, only momentarily, as he had only shut them for a second. He was beneath the covers the first time he saw it. The strange experience had coerced him into a state of fright, prompting his mouth to gape open while his eyes stared straight into his tightly closed eyelids. As if the back of them were a screen for the movies in his mind, a scene emerged there. A trivial gap in the black abyss at first, it eventually widened, like a door opening all the way, inch by inch. Then, a silvery brilliance materialized inside the rectangular space in a fascinating 3-D effect.
Then one day a character appeared, headfirst.
The thing peeked into the abyss from the edge of the silvery rectangle. It would do this regularly for quite a while to come.
But in due course it grew bolder, and stood in the middle of the doorway looking in—right at Jonathon’s eyes.
They must appear huge to the little bugger, he thought.
It was a simple character, all black and kind of animated, with the body and extremities of a stick figure a child might draw. It appeared harmless and somewhat cute, and glanced about apprehensively, giving Jonathon the impression it was as new to the experience as he was.
Then one day it signaled him.
It gestured with its little black index finger for him to come closer. At least that’s what Jonathon perceived it to be, as it was the first little stick out of what appeared to be three, extending from a little round hand atop a stick arm.
But on the other hand, maybe it’s a thumb, he thought, bewilderedly.
He then opened his eyes and closed them again.
That was all he had to do when he wanted the scene to go away: open and close them again—and voila! It would be gone, leaving him to the normal blackness of his closed eyelids.
“This is crazy,” he often said to himself when the creature appeared. But the stick guy would only shake his head, as if to say, ‘No … it isn’t crazy at all.’ Jonathon eventually got used to the apparition, and named him: Weird Little Stick Guy.
He even told his wife and kids about the phenomenon. Upon closing his eyes and attempting to nod off in his recliner, he’d sometimes say, “There’s Weird Little Stick Guy again.” His family would look at him, and then at each other, and back at him once more, worriedly. The stick guy would gesture for him to come closer again. Of course, Jonathon had no idea how to even attempt to approach the little guy and the shiny door, because he only saw the scene behind closed eyelids. So, how could he possibly move toward the door?
Weird Little Stick Guy will have to come to me, he thought.
“Why don’t you enter through the opening and into the darkness toward me?” he asked the little stick guy on more than one occasion. He’d just stare at Jonathon with a look of annoyance in the little white spaces that were his eyes. (Oh, I forgot to mention those. He was all black except for the two white blotches upon his little round head that sat atop his thin body.) The little spaces curled upward on the outside when he was disappointed. This made Jonathon aware of his disapproval.
“Why should I care if you’re upset?” he once asked the little stick guy. This caused his white blotches to curl even higher. Jonathon simply opened his eyes and entered his sight back into the normalcy of the room.
It often went that way.
It was the strangest thing to have ever occurred in Jonathon’s life. Of course, in today’s modern world of alternate lifestyles and political correctness, and tolerance thereof, it’s often difficult to be normal without appearing biased―or wrong. But considering Jonathon’s conventional upbringing and what he was striving for in life, other than his vision of Weird Little Stick Guy beneath his closed eyelids, he was the epitome of normal. He had a traditional wife and two ordinary kids; he lived in a customary ranch house in a familiar town with two characteristically modern automobiles in an adequate driveway; he had a typical dog (a black lab - you can’t get much more typical than that), and a job as a boring, yet conventional accountant. He watched mainstream sports on ESPN regularly and drank a few common beers here and there. He even listened to the Beatles, the Stones, and other classic rock (like any average geezer), and read popular novels by King and Grisham. “That sure is pretty damn normal,” you might be saying to yourself by this time (or that this story is pretty damn strange, and loaded with unnecessary adjectives that are all synonymous in one way or another. Anyway, please excuse the author intrusions; I’ll attempt to keep them minimal). The point I’m trying to make is that there was no known reason why this exemplary man was closing his eyes and seeing an animated character gesturing for him to move closer to the silvery opening it was standing in.
He just did.
He even took his problem to a shrink, and one doesn’t have to try too hard to grasp what happened there. Yes, the shrink took out his rectangular cards with the odd images on them and had Jonathon describe for him what they were; and although he may have thought him a tad off his rocker, he refrained from saying so, mainly because Jonathon spoke of his observations so normally, and gave all sorts of standard answers. The doctor eventually said, “I don’t know, Jonathon. Other than hallucinating when your eyes are closed, you seem pretty damn normal!”
“I know,” he replied, typically.
The doctor threw away his Rorschach Blots.
Jonathon went home and had dinner with his family—chicken.
Soon the vision altered again. This time Weird Little Stick Guy lifted his scrawny arm and waved it at Jonathon. Not just a finger, a whole stick arm waved at him frantically.
He’s getting awfully annoying, Jonathon thought. He doesn’t seem to realize still that there is no way for me to walk up and approach him behind my eyelids. I have no extremities in this restricted unreality. The little black figure gestured again with a wave of an arm for him to approach.
Jonathon chuckled, as he still had his wits about him, his sense of humor as well. Though the scenario seemed real, no way was he going to let it get the better of him. Weird Little Stick Guy had to be a figment of his imagination; he was sure of it. He had worked a lot of hours over the past year. It’s quite possible that lack of sleep had finally caught up with him. Adding fuel to the fire, he had become increasingly tired as the occurrences continued. It was often hard to sleep because stick guy and the silvery door kept him awake, and he found himself having to frequently open his eyes to make the scene go away.
Then one day it spoke!
Jonathon was stunned.
Though vague and distant, the stick guy uttered something.
He spoke again.
“Come here,” the animated creature said in a high-pitched, alien-like voice, more comprehensible the second time.
“But I can’t,” Jonathon answered. He was both excited and terrified by the latest performance. Lying back in his living-room recliner, he peered into his tightly closed eyelids and trembled.
“I’m losing it for sure,” he said to himself.
“Okay. I’ll come to you then,” the stick guy finally said. Jonathon’s shock heightened as the character suddenly entered through the door and into the darkness. He couldn’t believe what was happening. The stick guy was finally doing what he had asked him to do time and time again.
He had to keep his sight on the little guy’s eyes once he entered into the abyss, because his body had become one with the blackness within. But when he got right up to his eyes, Jonathon could see the materialistic distinction between the two shades of color, and could make him out much better. He appeared to be more authentic, more valid in essence. His face, though simple still, became ample and fleshy. His white-eye blotches appeared much bigger and displayed little red veins. The stick guy lost his innocence about him, too, as any character rendered more authentic would. Jonathon quivered fitfully in his recliner.
Hearing him make peculiar noises, his wife and kids looked over and observed his body movements and eye flinches. “Weird Little Stick Guy,” his son noted with a smirk. The others nodded in accordance. Though they’d seen Jonathon in this state before, this time was more intense. They didn’t know what to do for him other than sit back and watch his squinty eyes and ever changing facial expressions.
“What do you want to do?” Weird Little Stick Guy inquired. By this time his eyes were right up to Jonathon’s, and he was peering into them awkwardly. Jonathon returned the look, turning his head to and fro like a confused puppy.
“I don’t know. It appears to be your party,” Jonathon replied, saying the only thing he could think of at the time. After his wife and kids heard him speak, they glanced at each other again, all grinning.
“Why are you here?” Jonathon finally asked the stick guy. His wife shook her head in frustration, for she was really beginning to see him as three cents short of a nickel. Although his words were earnest and caring, there was no way her thoughts or emotions could connect with his. As she gazed down at him in a normal world, seeing what could only be perceived as fictitious, Jonathon viewed a strange world, with no other choice but to view it as real. They were, at that moment, true opposites.
“Time to call the doctor,” she said, exiting the room. The kids smirked and shook their heads, and went off to play video games.
Jonathon was left alone with his vision.
“Why do you insist on bothering me?” he asked again. Weird Little Stick Guy just peered directly into his eyeballs and acted as if he had heard nothing, his own white, veined blotches widening and protruding. He examined and probed Jonathon. Then he stood back.
“I don’t wish to bother you,” the stick guy finally said in the same alien-like voice. “I merely want you to play with us!” He then gestured with his three-fingered hand toward the rectangular door in the distance. At that moment, a whole slew of stick people abruptly entered through the silvery opening in single file and rapidly approached stick guy and Jonathon’s eyes! The stick crowd appeared joyful at the opportunity to come into the realm of Jonathon’s vision. They jumped about and hollered!
“Hooray, hooray, hooray!” all the little stick people shouted.
Jonathon was stunned.
He couldn’t see his eyes, of course, but he knew that they must have displayed a look of blood shot horror beneath his closed lids. He peered at the peculiar little crowd before him and at their antics of crazed jubilation.
The stick people jumped up and down and threw their stick arms and three fingered hands up in hysterical acts of euphoria. They then pulled balls of different sizes and colors out of nowhere and tossed them up and down and all about. They pulled out little stick bats of different colors also, and started whacking the balls all about. They tossed the bats about as well.
“Please stop!” Jonathon pleaded. The doctor, who had just walked into the room with Jonathon's wife, was stunned to see him so disturbed. His voice, though loud in the real world, was muted by the noise of the jubilant crowd, of which only he could hear. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” he hollered at the happy stick people. Balls and bats plunged into the whites of his eyes and whacked into his pupils! It was painful, too, but there was nothing he could do about it. He thought of closing his eyes in an effort to protect them from the oncoming slaughter but had to remind himself that they were already closed. Even when he tried to open them the lids didn’t seem to lift anymore, or the movement went unnoticed, as the view was the same in both positions. He finally realized that his worst nightmare had become a reality, as his eyelids no longer mattered. The stick people and the dark world had taken over—eyes open or closed.
The scene was outrageous; unbounded energy soared about everywhere he looked. Multi colored balls and bats flew far and wide. His eyeballs couldn’t keep up with the action before them. They shifted up and down and back and forth, viewing as much as possible. This scenario went on and on for what seemed like hours to Jonathon. The little people were having a ball in his shuteye world, open-eye, too.
Though it took him a while to realize it throughout the wild commotion, Weird Little Stick Guy was standing to his viewing right all this time, still and tranquil, just staring into his eyes. Quite upset by everything, Jonathon gawked at him fiercely.
“Get out!” he sternly stated. But Weird Little Stick Guy appeared unnerved by his words. Of course, you couldn’t even imagine what Jonathon's wife, his kids, and his doctor thought, listening to his demented shouts in the real world.
“You’re all a bunch o’ jerks!” they heard him say. His anger coerced his family’s eyelids to quiver, and impelled them to stand back as well. He started hollering ceaselessly.
“Stop throwing things at my eyes!”
“Who are all of these strange characters?”
“You’re all crazy and irresponsible!”
“Get the hell out! And take all of these little freaks with you!”
His family sighed as the doctor readied the needle.
Poor Jonathon had finally reached a point of distraught madness, or so it appeared to everyone around him. But just as he was about to yell something mean, horrible, and very demented at Weird Little Stick Guy and all his stick people, he felt a piercing sting in his upper arm. A sudden feeling of exhaustion and drowsiness overcame him. Weird Little Stick Guy noticed it, too, because the pointy ends went up on his white blotches again, displaying his disapproval with Jonathon. He shook his head in disgust.
“Alright! We’re out of here,” the stick guy said. All the stick people then shuffled through the silver opening in single file, Weird Little Stick Guy last. “We find you incredibly typical and boring,” he added, closing the door behind him.
Jonathon’s world went black beneath his eyelids.
He slept for hours.
Upon waking, he opened his eyes and found himself gazing up at an atypical ceiling. Two doctors were peering down at him from either side of the bed he was lying in. They eventually shook their heads and exited the room. Another doctor, who was sitting in a chair in the left corner of the room, looked up at him and smiled.
“Good morning, Jonathon,” the doctor said.
“He-he-hello,” he finally managed to utter.
“How are you today?”
“Ah … okay, I guess.”
“I want you to do something for me.”
“Okay. I’ll try,” Jonathon said. At that moment the doctor picked up a card for him to view.
“If you can, I’d like you to tell me what you see here.” Jonathon then looked at the black image upon the rectangular card.
What he saw made him shriek.
Weird Little Stick Guy was peering right back at him with his white blotches pointed way up high!
