by Joe Stanley
By now, I had no excuse. The lens, whatever it really was, was a dangerous thing. Even if not a threat to the body, it was a menace to the mind. The vistas it granted opened on things such creatures as we were never meant to glimpse. That opening of the senses stretched the mind and left it at the point of shattering.
But what was I to do? Never in my life had I known anything so great, so profound. As horrible as using it was, to discard it forever was a thought I could not bear. My desire, my greed, stuck me with shame. Had I been a better man, I would have smashed it with a hammer. I could only imagine what supreme will, or utter ignorance of its power, could allow some one to bury it and leave it there.
I thought of it constantly, knowing that if I dared it again, I might be reduced to madness. Still, I knew my obsession was a sure sign that I was at least halfway there. At night, I would lie awake and ponder what I might direct its gaze upon. The temptation would grind me between the lonely hours until the sun began to rise. Then a thought came to me, insane and grotesque. Rising from my bed, I took the lens and stood before a mirror.
I did not hesitate, but lifted the lens to look upon my own reflection. What words can describe what I saw? To see myself, such a simple thing, crowned with the glory of life was to realize what madmen and fools have so laughably designated as divine. I knew that my meager life was the very life of this universe itself. Let deluded dreamers say what they will of what comes after, or what came before. Not even the holy throne of God almighty was ever so magnificent as to be real.
And with this knowledge, imparted from the vision, I saw within myself the ugly truth. I saw my failings and flaws, all the ways I had squandered this rare and special gift. I understood the wonders I might have known had I been equally perfect, had I but resisted the urge to be myself. And more, I saw my end, wretched and pathetic, my own repulsive dissolution back into the grimy dust from which I came. And still, I saw on and on, to a truth that struck me dumb and frozen.
For the universe would carry on without me, caring nothing for the nothing I would become.
I tried to wrench my eyes away, to preserve some fragment of hope for some chance of happiness. But here my eyes caught a detail of which I was blissfully unaware. For through the lens, I saw the lens and the alien eye which stared at me from it. And through the damnable lens, I learned of it.
They are watchers from the outside. Their eyes pierce this reality from the blackness beyond the stars. They watch and they know all they see. Their eternal eyes never weary, never blink. They see naught but the truth, penetrating the delusions we rely on, through the lies we tell ourselves. And if such a thing as delight exists in so alien a mind, it is their pleasure to reveal the fatal blindness in our imperfect, mortal eyes.
All of this and more, so horribly much more, was gleaned in a few scant heartbeats. In terror, I staggered back and stumbled, the lens slipping from my hand. Even as I heard it shatter, I cursed myself as though I deserved death. As I looked down on the fragments, the dim and feeble voice of reason tried to console me, to tell me that this was all for the best. But even this they would not allow.
It rose from the shards, a pillar of dust or smoke. It looked much like an inverted raindrop, larger at the top than at the bottom. Crowned with a bulb-like orb, the surface was covered with its eyes. It gazed on me for a moment before it slipped back into the darkness beyond. I understood.
They had seen me. They knew me. They would watch me until the end of time. I need no lens to feel them, to see them peering from dark corners. I see them staring when I close my eyes.
They watch.
Never blinking, they watch.
From beyond eternity, they watch.
And they know all they see.
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