There was something growing out of my mother's left eye.
She didn't seem to notice anything, but kept on reading. The room wore halos of lamplight, so perhaps it was only a shadow. But when I moved toward her, I saw it clearly. It was about as big as a pencil eraser, and seemed firmly entrenched in the glossy white. I couldn't stand looking at it - - it made her look like a freak, and a stranger to me. "Mom, what's that awful thing in your left eye?"
She glanced up and brushed at it idly. "Oh, that's a spur."
"Spur? You mean a stye?"
"No, spur," she said emphatically.
As I bent forward and peered closely, I saw that it was shaped like a miniature face. This couldn't be. I blinked and said, "I never heard of a spur in the eye. Is that what the doctor calls it?"
She nodded and went back to her reading.
How could she be so nonchalant? I asked, "Aren't you going to have it removed? Doesn't it hurt? Is it - - dangerous? How can you see around it?"
She hooked her finger in the book and looked up at me. "It's not dangerous at all, and you get used to seeing around it."
I kept staring at the thing. It definitely had a face - - two eyes and a mouth were etched plainly on the tiny surface. I backed up a bit because I had an insane desire to twist it off, to restore my mother to a normal, familiar person again. "But Mom, it's so ugly. How long have you had it?"
She shrugged. "About a week."
"A week! How come I didn't notice it before?"
She gave me a half-smile. "Maybe because you spend most of your time at that man's apartment. Now just drop it, Kit, there's no point talking about it."
But there was. I didn't want a mother who looked so hideous, so different. I didn't have a chance to say more, because just then my father walked into the room. "Hi, Kit," he said. "I didn't hear you come in." When he leaned to kiss me, I saw it. There was something growing out of his left eye.
* * *
Instead of taking the subway to Rob's apartment, I walked back in the cool city night. Seeing both my parents with those repulsive growths in their eyes left me feeling like I had slipped down a bottomless shaft into unreality, and I wanted the solid sidewalk beneath me. Faces the size of pencil erasers floated across my vision as the traffic and the city lights danced and streaked like neon lasers.
How could my parents live with something that made them so ugly? Were spurs contagious? With my sweater sleeve I rubbed fiercely at my cheek where my father had kissed me.
Out of the mouth of an alley stepped an old man, zipping up his fly. He stumbled close to me, smiling with uneven teeth, and then away. In the instant of his nearness, I thought I saw something in his eye. But when I turned to stare after him, he was lost in the shifting crowd.
I stood at the darkened window glass of a store where I could see my reflection, and pulled down the lower lid of my left eye. Nothing, thank God. I wasn't going to be a freak. And if anything ever grew there, I'd have it taken off immediately.
Rob was pre-med, so as soon as I arrived at his apartment, I asked, "What's a spur in the eye?"
He shrugged. "Some kind of growth?"
"I'm asking you. You're the doctor."
"Not for five years yet. Where did you hear about this?"
"My mother and father each have one in their left eye. It - - it looks like a tiny face."
He grinned at me. "Anyone we know?"
"Don't be a wise-ass. If you saw those growths, you'd agree with me - - they're really hideous. Grotesque." I went to the mirror to check my eyes again. They were perfectly normal.
Rob said, "I'm sure your parents will have them removed if they're bothersome."
"No they won't. I can tell they're both completely at ease with them, and that's what makes me even more disgusted. How can they live like that? And on the way here, I thought I saw a man in the street with one. Maybe - - maybe a couple of people, I don't know." Had there been more? My mind swam with visions of tiny spur faces.
"Really? Maybe it's an epidemic."
"Please, Rob, be serious. I'm afraid of getting one. I don't ever want to be that ugly. Would you look it up for me to see if it's hereditary? Or contagious? I know she said spur."
"Okay," Rob agreed. "Tomorrow morning I'll see what I can find in the college library."
During the night I dreamed of the spurs. Miniature faces clustered about me like shrunken children, climbed up my legs, tried to reach my eyes. No! I pushed at them and they fall away, but dozens more came tumbling back over me, their tortured, grisly features begging me to let them in.
The hammering of my heart woke me, but when I tried to go back to sleep, images of spurs attacking me resurfaced. I lay tensely awake, anxious for the night to be over.
At last the alarm sounded and I shook Rob. "Time to get up," I said. When he turned over and looked at me, there was something growing out of his left eye.
I screamed, but he placed his hand gently across my mouth. "It's not a bad thing, Kit - - I don't mind it at all. It feels so natural, I can understand why your parents are comfortable with them."
"But it's horrible! You look like a freak!" His handsome face was ruined for me forever. Shuddering, I broke away from him to pull on my clothes.
He sat on the bed and watched me. "There's no reason to run from it, Kit. I know this sounds strange - - but it gives me a sense of belonging. When it happens to you, don't fight it."
"No!" I cried. "I'll never let myself look that hideous, no!" With my fingers, I felt my eyes, and they were clean. I was still safe, but I had to get away from Rob, in case spurs were contagious.
I raced out into the street, into the crush of people going to work. The crowd swelled and surged against me, then cringed away, staring at me with malice and revulsion. I tried to struggle past the throng, but was swept along and buffeted back and forth by an endless stream of faces with a spur in the eye. At the center of the horde, I thought I saw my parents and Rob, pointing at me. Thousands of whispers swarmed over me like the hissing of snakes: "Look! A freak! She has no spur!"
I was the stranger in the crowd. The hostile mob hurtled past. I could see the miniature face on each spur in the eye, and it was my own.
-The End-
