The Eye

By Brady Gill

Just like the rest was Mary Sue

She had friends

Some close

And some that would do

She had a job that paid the bills

It wasn’t the best, but it used her skills

She liked it outside

Didn’t get out enough

She knew life was good even though it felt tough

She had a place to live

She slept in a bed

And had a gigantic eye floating over her head

A fat probing juicy eye

That casually floated low in the sky

Circling, capturing all that she did

Everything caught and kept in her vids

And just like the rest she knew it was there

To not have an eye was the thing that was rare

For how else could anyone possible share

Everything that they did and make others care?

When Mary Sue ate, she ate with a flourish

Her eye told the world that she was well nourished

Whenever she went anywhere that was new

Her eye made her friends feel like they’d been there too

And even when she was just feeling sad

To her eye she’d act like it wasn’t that bad

For she wanted cheers from her friends and her peers

And no one got cheers for shedding a tear

Cheers were given to vids that were great

And when watching friends vids your job was to rate

Everything that they did and they would await

The rousing applause which kept their lives straight

Just like the vids, cheers came from the eye

So when vids were approved, cheers rang through the sky

Mary Sue never knew which vids were adored

So she used every action to try and get more

One day Mary Sue was out for a run

A chance to show off the health kick she’d begun

Her athletic pants matched her green running top

And cheer after cheer made it too hard to stop

She grunted and cringed to show it was tough

Then smiled and laughed saying, “It’s not that rough!”

Mary Sue was so focused on getting it right

That she didn’t notice her eye had lost flight

But once she looked up with no eye in sight

And only the night, she stopped with a fright

All she could hear was a terrible hissing

The wheezing whisper of what she was missing

She followed the sound in a march that seemed fated

And found her poor eye

In a tree, quiet deflated.

Her eye in a box labeled handle with care

Was shipped in the morning to get it’s repairs

So when Mary Sue woke, nothing was there

No one was watching while she brushed her hair

No one was waiting to see what she ate

Or send her a cheer when she said it was great

So Mary Sue sat in her kitchen alone

And quietly munched while she let her mind roam

When she finished her meal

But didn’t feel done

She made herself more

Thinking, “Isn’t this fun

Isn’t this morning simply divine

To eat what I want while taking my time”

At work Mary Sue didn’t know what to do

When she finished her work at a quarter to two

All the tasks went so fast without vids to go through

And as soon as she thought it she knew it was true

“There’s something to this, that I could get used to.”

With little to do, Mary Sue took a stroll

To a park that she knew with an eye worthy knoll

But without an eye there to show where she’d been

She simply sat still and took it all in

Mary Sue took a hike she walked through the trees

Then hopped on her bike and sang with the breeze

She rode through the town, just looking around

But her smile diminished by what she had found

Without her own eye to keep her attention

She looked at her world with new apprehension

Hundreds of eyes, all bobbing in space

Zooming down and then up at a near frantic pace

For a landscape view or close up of a face

Encased in the stories the people were sharing

Friends walked passed each other without really caring

No one had a bearing.  Nobody could hear

Anything said was drowned out by the cheers

And these eyes were grotesque when you took a close look

Slimey and bulging and covered in gook

How did we ever allow this to be?

We wanted to share

So we just didn’t see.

Mary Sue traveled home

Feeling quite disturbed

Only to find a white box on the curb

She picked it up and took it inside

She opened the box and there was her eye

Her eye stared at her

Mary Sue stared right back

Unsure if she felt some relief or attack

And then Mary Sue laughed

“Why feel so much fear?

It won’t hurt if I take one vid

For one cheer.”