Flash Fiction: The Cry Eye

Inspired by an image created by Wajad R. Basha

While going through her teenage drawings, Wajad R. Basha came across the one shown above. She sent it to me and wondered if it might inspire a story. It did indeed, so here you go, followed by The Cry Eye rendered by ChatGPT.

The Cry Eye

Fear is a great motivator, but I tend to disagree, as it has left me in a state of mental distress from which there is no way out. I am ready to crack under the weight of it all, but I know what happens if I do.

It all began when I was a child under the crew of a single father. My mom had passed during my birth, and while he did his best to raise me, I don’t feel my father was equipped to do so alone. He would be at his worst when I would cry, launching into angry tirades that ended in him calling me names that no child should ever be called. He was always apologetic after the fact, but the memories lingered in my mind, spreading like cancer to infect my brain with strange fears.

The worst fear of all was The Cry Eye, a creature that my dad told me about one night after screaming at me. He explained that he only got angry with my tears because he was afraid of the monster hiding inside me. Tears, he said, would bring The Cry Eye to life, allowing it to sprout limbs and wings that would allow it to break out of the socket. He told me that the beast was active during childbirth and after I reached the age of six, which was right around the corner. It wasn’t spoken, but I assumed that it was the Cry Eye that had escaped to take my mother when I was born.

Guilt turned into fear, and I found a way to essentially shut down my tear glands from that point forward. No amount of pain or misery was ever able to penetrate the emotional fortress I had built around myself. Even when dad died, I was a rock, standing strong as he was put in the ground. No one else was there to see the burial. Had there been, and tears had been shed, perhaps it would have cured me of my belief in The Cry Eye.

That was more than a decade ago now. I am alone in my apartment every day, living on the money my dad left behind. It wasn’t much, but more than enough for my meager lifestyle, or so I thought. The well is running dry and there is no way out. The thought of leaving the apartment terrifies me, so finding a job is not on the cards. My life is, for all intents and purposes, over. There is only one way out, which is to shed the curse or die trying.

Thinking about my life, anger burns hot inside, but as it burns out, a grief as heavy as a ship anchor settles in. Before I know it, my eyes sting as tears begin to fall. Pressing the heel of my hands to my eyes, I gasp as claws tear at my skin from inside the sockets. When I feel and hear the flutter of wings, I know my end is coming.