I lost my right eye when I was ten.
It was my own fault. Charlotte and Emily -my sisters- told me not to look. They told me to mind my own business. But I didn’t listen.
So I probably deserved what happened to me. My therapist doesn’t think so, but in my heart of hearts I know she’s wrong.
They kept excluding me, you see. They stayed inside their room, whispering and giggling and playing with their own toys -their barbie dolls and barbie house and gear, even though they were way too old by then. That had always been their thing, frr Christmases and birthdays. Barbies and barbie gear. And they would never include me. All I wanted was to play with them! But they always yelled at me and told me to get out whenever I went in their room.
So I looked through the keyhole- our doors had these wide old-fashioned keyholes for which the keys had long been lost, and I could glimpse them moving round- but other things too seemed to be moving around? I just wanted to know what was happening there. Why wouldn’t they let me in?
Mom kept nagging at them to give away their old barbie stuff and declutter their room, now that they had outgrown playing with dolls, but they always refused. They loved their big old pink barbie house and fastidiously arranged and rearranged their barbie dolls, all the time. I just wanted to be included.
Sometimes Mom, Dad, and I could hear them speaking as they passed their door on the landing, not to each other, but to the barbies, in differently-pitched voices. I would lean in to glimpse of them through the keyhole- I could see them moving around by the big doll house.
“Cathy was such a cry-baby today”
“Well, you were kinda mean to her Anne!”
“Nell- I’m hungry! Is supper ready?”
“It’s so cold, the wind will be the death of me”
Who speaks like that? What the hell where they doing in there? I was getting too old to ask to play, instead, I made a nuisance of myself. Looking back, I can see how annoying I must have been. I don’t know if that made me deserve losing my eye though, but I guess it does.
One night, I didn’t bother knocking and begging to be let in. Instead, I went up to their door and banged on it “Oi- you two! You’re too big to be playing with dolls!” I yelled.
Emily yelled right back at me “Piss off Brett, mind your effing business!”
I retorted smartly “You two are so screwed up! Did you know if a real woman had the proportions of a barbie doll, she’d be crawling on her hands and knees because her boobs are too big?” I cackled. They wouldn’t let me in, so I had to act that way. If they were only nicer to me. Why were they always so fucking mean to me? Weren’t older sisters supposed to be nice to their baby brothers? Not those two.
Charlotte screamed “Shut the fuck up!” Emily shouted “And get away from the keyhole, we know you’re spying, you perv!”
Mom called from downstairs, “language please! Dinner in 20! Emily, table, Charlotte, salad!”
I muttered loudly “I’m not touching any salad she makes!”
Emily and Charlotte walked out of their room. Emily reached out and cuffed me as she walked passed “Idiot!” she snorted. Charlotte crossed her eyes at me “Stop spying on us, freakzoid!” They clattered downstairs.
I opened their door, and walked into their room.
At first I just saw the typical clutter, piles of unwashed smelly clothes and the cheap gear of teenagers. But the far end of the room, where the giant pink barbie doll house stood, beyond their bed, was kept immaculate. It was huge, much bigger than any doll house I had ever seen. I had actually never seen it close up- I only had some dim memory of it.
I was pulled towards it, stepping closer.
Four or five barbie dolls in sparkly colourful outfits and bright sharp high heels were neatly arranged around and in the house in various poses. One was at the window of the house, her hands on the pane. A couple were set about outside the house. One was sitting reading in the living room. One was lying in bed, her hands bought up covering her face, as if she was crying, and another one was leaning over her, as if consoling her.
Fascinated, I reached out my hand. One of the barbies which was posed outside turned its plastic head with its high mane of yellow hair towards me and opened her sharply-lipsticked mouth.
My scream of terror mingled with Emily’s furious shriek from the door. “What the hell are you doing here! Get out, now!” She physically launched herself at me, dragging his unresisting body away.
“I saw- what- “ I babbled.
Emily pushed her face close to mine and whispered venomously. “You saw jackshit, ok?” she hissed.
That night as I lay in bed, I saw two barbie dolls with the duplicated faces of Emily and Charlotte crawling across my bedroom towards me. They were topless, with heavy smooth plastic boobs hanging down their chests. Their spindly legs stuck up behind them, the sharp stiletto heels pointing like daggers upwards. They climbed stiffly up my bed, their sharp little claw hands gripping the bedclothes.
I yelped out of sleep, covered in sweat. It was a nightmare.
I could hear low voices coming from their room.
Compelled, I got up and went out to the hallway, and up to their closed bedroom door, trying to make out the low murmurs. A dim light was shining beneath the doorway.
Out of the force of habit, I leaned down and put my eye to the keyhole.
I saw things moving, scuttling sounds. Something came suddenly right up to the door.
Before I had the chance to move, a thin plastic barbie leg ending in a sharp stiletto heel stabbed my eye right through the keyhole, pinning me to the door.
My howl of agony pierced through the night.