Photo by Mohamed Marey on Unsplash
When my left eyeball popped out, it bounced so fast and high, like a superball, against my ceiling, against my walls, against my closet door, that I nearly lost my other eye, as well as some teeth and a few limbs, trying to catch it.
Being young, I adjusted quickly to having only one eye, because, as the ER doctor said, kids are resilient. And an added bonus was that I became instantly popular at school, with all the kids begging to play with my eye (and me), though first we had to convince our teacher, who finally said okay but only if we played inside because who knows how far it could bounce, the sky being the literal limit, and she was right to be cautious because I knew my mom would flip out if my eye bounced away because she hadn’t wanted me to take it to school in the first place, had said just leave it home, that she wouldn’t let anything happen to it while I was gone. But she’d also said that about Teddy, the bear I’d spilled milk on when I was three, and whose plastic nose fell off a few years later, right before our dog Spuds got ahold of him, ripping off one of Teddy’s paws, and though I thought Teddy looked super tough like that and wanted to take him for show and tell, my mom said what if something else happens to the poor guy and swore she’d take good care of him while I was at school, but then Teddy was gone when I got home, and all my mom could say was how he was in a better place now, as were all the old clothes that no longer fit me.
So, obviously I didn’t trust my mom with my eyeball, and I also thought it might be good to have a spare handy in case my right eye popped out, too, but then my mom said you can’t replace eyes, or any body parts for that matter, and that I’d better be careful or I wouldn’t make it to junior high intact.
Which made me wonder what else I could lose and, even more concerning, if my mom would give me away like she did Teddy if I became too imperfect.
Jessica Klimesh’s flash and microfiction can be found in multiple journals, and her work was also selected for Best Microfiction 2025 and Best of the Net 2025. Learn more at jessicaklimesh.com.
