
Close All Your Eyes
Content warning: state violence against women and queer people, childhood experiences of domestic violence, blood, gore.
B
ret’s sister whispered Greek myths at night when they couldn't sleep because of the shouting. Bret’s favourite was the story of Argus. The giant with one hundred eyes who worked as Hera’s henchman, guarding things (and people) the goddess either held dear or wanted to control (the same thing in most of Hera’s relationships). Bret loved best when her sister would tell her about the time that Argus finally died. This giant, invincible and unbeatable because he would only ever close half his eyes to sleep, forgot about the threat of boredom and underestimated the talents of Hermes. Argus thought he was always prepared. Always ready for a fight. Until Hermes came with music and stories and lulled him into a sleep that transformed into death.
“Never close all your eyes" was a mantra Bret repeated to herself when she was scared. She did love the idea of being able to rest and protect herself simultaneously. What a gift to be able to do both at once. But Argus is proof that you can never ever let your guard down, even if you have one hundred eyes and mythic strength.
“Tell me how he died,” Bret whispered, flinching as something hard and heavy hit the wall and muffled angry voices rose and fell like storm surf down the hall. Without speaking, her big sister, Vera climbed out of her bed and crept to Bret’s side of the room. She silently pulled back the covers on the old four-poster, the corners carved like intricate pinecones, and slid her long body against her sister’s.
Argus is proof that you can never ever let your guard down, even if you have one hundred eyes and mythic strength.
“Argus was commanded by Hera to guard Io,” Vera whispered, directly into Bret’s ear so that there was no chance they could be overheard. “Io had been turned into a cow by Zeus in order to hide her from Hera, but Hera had asked for the cow as a gift and Zeus could not refuse her. Io wasn't even fenced in, but Argus watched her day and night, night and day, so she had no chance of escape.”
Vera took a breath and Bret shivered from the warmth tickling her ear. A door slammed down the hall. “And then?” Bret turned to whisper, hungry for distraction.
“And then,” Vera whispered back, “Io's father, who was a river god, went to Hermes and begged for help freeing his daughter. He knew that no one other than Hermes had any chance of succeeding. After some negotiation, Hermes agreed. He traveled to Olympus where Io was being watched day and night, night and day, in an endless field of golden flowers and grass so green and soft it looked like water when it moved in the wind.
Hermes climbed a gnarled and ancient olive tree and spent three days and three nights watching Argus watch Io. Hermes observed that Argus stood with all his eyes closed on his right side in the morning. But then at noon he would begin blinking. This ritual change from the right side to the left side of the body took precisely twelve minutes and twelve seconds. Hermes timed it for three days in a row, counting patiently, using his heartbeat as a metronome, from his perch in the olive tree.” Bret adjusted her head so she could hear Vera’s whispers more clearly. She loved this part.
“Argus would begin by stretching his arms straight into the air and spreading his massive palms so that all ten fingers, each one tipped with an eye, five bright and five draped with long and lustrous lashes, faced each other palm to palm, fingertips stretching skyward. The fingertip eyes were the first to make the transition. The lashes on the right hand would begin to flutter, looking like tiny wisps of feather shaking in the wind. At the same time, the lashes on the left hand would begin to droop, resisting the urge to close at first. Then eyes on the left hand would suddenly give in to sleep, and the fluttering on the right seemed to intensify and then all the eyes on the right hand would burst open. Argus would then slowly draw his arms down on either side until they were level with his enormous waist, also lined with eyes, encircling the simple, linen tunic he wore. Argus would turn his palms up to the sky. The eyes on each palm and all the eyes along his arms then began their exchange, fluttering on the right, growing heavy on the left and then suddenly making the switch. Once that was complete, Argus would lower his arms and draw in a breath that made the trees and grass around him shake, as if he was sucking all the wind in the field into his lungs. Then, with a slow exhale through his mouth, he would bow his head and begin to slowly spin, dragging his massive feet through the lush grass. As he spun, the eyes all over the rest of his body finally transitioned to their new role.”
Bret wiggled up so she could reach Vera’s ear again. “Did he have eyes even on his knees?!” Bret asked.
“He had eyes even on his knees,” Vera whispered back, smiling in the dark.
Hermes tricked Argus into closing all his eyes at once, which for Argus, meant death. And when Hera found Argus dead, she screamed a terrible scream that frightened all the birds and animals on earth. They all took shelter, hiding, except for one. A large, grey bird with massive tail feathers came as if called, and joined Hera in the field, standing vigil quietly beside her. After many hours weeping, Hera raised her head and took note of her unusual companion. She looked from Argus laying before her in a sleep that was death, thousands of eyelashes fluttering in the wind, and she looked back at the large bird, who held her gaze. Without speaking, Hera reached out her own massive arms, sweeping her hands across the giant’s body and all his eyes came away in her hands. She gathered them gently to her chest for a moment and then turned to face the bird, lovingly letting all one hundred eyes fall through her fingers where they landed like water, spreading out into extraordinary patterns and colours onto the bird’s feathers.”
Bret kicked her feet under the cotton blanket, unable to contain herself and whispered, “And that’s how the peacock got his beautiful tail!”
“And that’s how the peacock got his beautiful tail,” Vera repeated.
“And Io?” Bret asked.
“You know about Io!” Vera whispered. “She escaped, protected by Hermes on her travels, and she became a goddess in Egypt.”
“A cow goddess?” Bret said, too loudly.
“Shhh!” Vera admonished, then, gently, “Yes, a cow goddess. She had to leave home, but once she crossed borders, she was safe and protected and loved forever.”
Bret stood, appraising herself in a bathroom mirror behind a Shell Station. The door had four different locks and all of them were broken. She kept the tip of her left boot against it so she could kick back if anyone tried to come in. Slowly she pulled back her sleeve. It had started yesterday with one at the tip of her thumb. But now she couldn’t even count. The small swollen growths had spread everywhere. “What the fuck?” she said out loud to her reflection. And then she leaned over and vomited in the filthy sink. Bending over, gripping cracked white enamel, she had a physical rush of memory. After Vera had left, Bret would often run her fingers over her own damp skin, warm with hot, attic air, moonlight casting shadows through the narrow skylight, and she would imagine that she had one hundred eyes blinking all over her body. She could almost feel them; all powerful eyes, able to keep her safe, closing gently as her own fingertips brushed past their thousands of lashes. Both Argus and Hermes remained talismans that she carried everywhere with her. Hermes was proof that fashion and art could be lethal. That power wasn’t always about size and physical strength. Shoes with wings? Iconic. Hermes was god of travelers and thieves. And Bret understood that thievery is often reserved for the desperate. She deeply admired Hermes for his enthusiastic support for those in need and on the run. Bret had imagined keeping watch over herself with one hundred eyes all over. She had imagined being stylish and sharp enough to protect the people she loved. But her imagination always cast her as the hero, and if she followed this tunneling nausea all the way down, there was an even sicker feeling at the bottom. A deep, fearful knowing that she might not be able to protect herself from whatever this was.
Meg had been away for a month now. They hadn't wanted to go, but Bret had convinced them finally that it was the best thing for their career. “And good for your career will be good if this actually works, which it probably won’t, so either way you should go, babe.”
They had decided to go ahead with this pregnancy plan because the frozen sample, looking ghostly and mysterious as the vapour from the dry ice poured down the sides of the stainless steel shipping container, had arrived the same afternoon that Meg’s firm had called to make the offer. Bret was struggling to open the futuristic steel canister when Meg’s phone rang and they looked down, saw it was their boss and made a face that meant they had to take it. And when Meg returned to the kitchen from the back yard where Bret had registered some agitated pacing, they had said, “Well, I think our plans for the night are ruined.”
The plans involved gin and tonics with (the best) gin Meg had brought back recently from a work trip to the Azores, a playlist that Bret had spent all week working on named, What The Hell Why Not I Love You and a new bottle of special pH balanced lube that was supposed to mimic fertile cervical fluid by producing a ferning pattern that the bottle enthusiastically claimed was, “visible under a microscope!”
“Who the fuck owns a microscope?” Bret had said when Meg had proudly handed her the bottle.
“Listen,” Meg said, pulling their glasses down a little on their nose and affecting a professorial tone, “Research shows that coming so hard you cry increases chances of conception and therefore, a high quality, sperm friendly lube is an essential component for getting knocked up."
“Ah,” Bret answered, working to keep a straight face, “My sex ed classes skipped over the coming so hard you cry part.”
Meg finally broke, laughing. “Anyway,” they said, pushing their glasses back into place, “If this doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I'm never setting foot in that fucking fertility clinic again.”
Bret took a knowing sip of her G&T and nodded her head slowly. “So much white leather,” she said, punching each word with a disdainful staccato. “So many straight people.” Meg held Bret’s gaze, grinning, and then pulled her into a long kiss.
Meg was the most junior partner on the team that had been tapped to spend three months establishing the first foreign office for the firm. "And what did you spend your undergrad studying five languages for, if not for opportunities like this one after law school?” Bret had argued later that night with her feet propped up against the wall in their king size bed, hands on her belly wondering what microscopic adventures and transformations that haploid cells might be engaged in at this very moment inside her.
Bret still sometimes stood in front of the full length mirror in their sunny bedroom, staring herself down and whispering “Never close all your eyes.” But since Meg, Bret had slowly started to hope that she might be able to rest and be safe at the same time. Meg was good and loved all the things that Bret had always hated about herself, so that Bret had begun to consider loving those parts too. Meg was the first person since Vera who understood all the things Bret couldn't explain without any explanation. And Meg wanted this. Had always wanted this. Meg had good parents who would be amazing grandparents. “My parents will be such amazing grandparents,” Meg had said.
But since Meg, Bret had slowly started to hope that she might be able to rest and be safe at the same time.
“I know they will,” Bret answered, quietly every time the subject came up. And part of Bret wanted to believe it all was possible, so she was trying.
Meg made Bret swear that she would call them when and if it was time to take a pregnancy test and Bret promised. But with Meg’s grueling schedule and the time difference, finding time to talk was harder than expected. Over a month into Meg’s absence, when Bret found one night that she couldn't bring herself to eat any dinner, and when she brought up bright yellow bile as a result of brushing her teeth the next morning, she decided just to check. She promised herself she would do it again with Meg later. She had barely drawn the little piece of white plastic from between her legs and fumbled to put the cap on so she didn't drip pee anywhere before the two lines appeared. “Holy fuck,” Bret whispered.
She didn't want to upset Meg and ruin this work opportunity for nothing. She felt a deep mistrust of the overpriced plastic stick. She called her doctor’s office and got them to email requisitions for an ultrasound and a blood test. She went for both that afternoon, promising herself she would call Meg as soon as she got the results.
The next evening, her doctor called. Bret slid her finger across her phone screen to answer the call and a wave of nausea hit her as she managed to say, “Hello?”
“I'm so sorry to tell you this, Miss Warren,” said her doctor, placidly professional, “But I need to direct you to present at an emergency room. Your pregnancy hormone level is positive but there was no intrauterine pregnancy visible on the scan. I need to recommend that you go immediately for further assessment for what is likely an ectopic pregnancy.”
Bret had known that pregnancies could grow where they didn’t belong but she had never considered this strange type of pregnancy could happen to her. Her doctor cleared his throat and Bret registered discomfort. She tensed, sensitive to potential conflict. She knew he hadn’t approved of the home insemination and probably didn’t approve of her existence, but there weren’t many choices for medical care in the area. He cleared his throat again and said, “As I’m sure you’re aware, the laws have changed.”
There was an uncomfortably long pause, during which Bret searched her thoughts fruitlessly for an appropriate response, finally managing to mumble, “Um, yeah. I knew. I mean, I know.” She knew, and she cared. Of course she cared. She and Meg had donated to things, gone to marches. But as a person who had sperm delivered on dry ice, she hated to admit to herself that she hadn't really realized the laws might ever apply to her.
Her doctor continued, “Have you had any strong pelvic pain on one side or the other?”
“What?” Bret answered, “I mean, no.”
“Very good. Referred pain to the tip of your shoulder? Pain during bowel movements? Bleeding from the vagina? Any fainting?” He rattled off the set of questions rapid fire.
“Um, some spotting. This morning. No pain.”
“No pain yet? How much spotting? From the vagina?”
“Yet?” Bret asked, reflexively.
“How much bleeding?” He repeated, “Is it continuing now?”
Bret fumbled, trying to check her underwear. “Um, it was just a little on the toilet paper. Bright red but small. I don't think I’m still bleeding.”
"Well,” he said conclusively, “with the level of your pregnancy hormone, and the date of conception you have shared with us, we would expect to see a pregnancy on ultrasound.” He somehow lingered on the word “shared” as if Bret had given his office illicit details of her sex life. He cleared his throat. “Given the risk of ectopic pregnancy in this case, I’ll need to recommend that you travel to the nearest emergency room for an immediate assessment,” and before Bret could answer, he finished by adding, “Out of state.”
“The nearest emergency room, out of state?” Bret repeated.
“Yes, and I’ll need to recommend that you leave immediately. This type of pregnancy can be fatal for you, and if your pregnancy is ectopic, it will need to be terminated either with a medication called methotrexate or with surgery, neither of which can be accessed here.”
Bret let her breath go. Fatal. She ventured, “But this is a wanted pregnancy … ” she trailed off.
Another uncomfortable clearing of the throat on the other end of the phone. “As I’m sure you’re aware,” the doctor repeated, “there are no exceptions to the law.”
As Bret moved to press the red button on her phone’s screen to end the call, she saw it. A small raised area at the tip of her thumb. Ectopic. That meant a pregnancy growing somewhere it shouldn't. But surely not on the surface of her skin? Was that possible? It couldn't be. Slowly, carefully, she ran her index finger back and forth over the new growth. The tip of her thumb was taut and felt slightly hot. Before she could think logically about what might be happening, she retched and ran to the kitchen sink, unable to make it down the hall to the bathroom. Yellow bile pooled on the small, white plate she had used for her breakfast, swirling around drying egg yolk.
Bret’s boot lost its contact with the gas station bathroom door as she bent to throw up and the door swung open, the distant smell of fresh cut grass and gasoline and the stench of the filthy bathroom combining in a particular way that had her bending over the sink immediately a second time. The light running behind the yellow letters and red stripe of the Shell Station sign pooled on the black pavement outside the broken door, flickering occasionally. Bret stood up slowly, nudging the tap gingerly with the heel of her hand, careful not to knock any of the small growths that now dotted each fingertip and swelled on each palm.
She gently wiped a wet hand across her mouth and then spit in the sink, but when she stood up again, her face staring back at her in the grimy mirror was bloody. “What the fuck?” she said, again out loud, her gaze moving from her reflection in the mirror to her right hand where one of the swollen things on one of her fingers had burst, and blood was now pouring out like a knife wound. Bret looked around the bathroom for options. The toilet paper roll was an empty cardboard tube. What looked like a paper towel dispenser was actually one of those old cotton towel contraptions that sent a piece of cloth spinning around, ostensibly giving the next user a clean section of towel. “God damn it,” Bret swore, “These things predate germ theory.” But her finger was still bleeding, so she used her house key to tear the edge of the fabric and then pulled as hard as she could, ripping off a length of the waffle textured towel. Bret wrapped a strip around her finger tightly and tried to apply pressure. By the time she got back to the car, the towel was soaked through.
One of the swollen things on one of her fingers had burst, and blood was now pouring out like a knife wound.
She lowered herself back into the car slowly, trying to ignore the disturbing sensation of swollen growths running all up and down her arms and legs. As she gently buckled her seatbelt, she also carefully avoided the swollen places across her stomach, and sat up awkwardly straight, gripping the steering wheel in order to protect the swollen places running down her back from the pressure of the driver's seat.
She hadn’t called Meg. She had just gotten in the car and started driving. Now back on the narrow, two lane highway, she thought about calling Vera, but she didn’t know what she would say to either one of them. “Never close all your eyes!” she shouted out through the window as she passed a stand of cows, their large eyes flashing for a split second in her headlights as she sped past.
The pain started around midnight. It radiated through her whole body and throbbed, searing and intermittent, and stealing all her breath each time it hit. She gagged, and trying to stop herself from vomiting again, she let go of the steering wheel with her left hand and pressed her palm against her mouth, but immediately recoiled as her lips touched the swollen thing at the centre. She felt a warm liquid pulse against her cheek and tasted blood as the swollen thing on her palm burst. She let go of the steering wheel with her right hand, trying uselessly to apply the blood soaked cotton tied around her right index finger to put pressure on her left palm, blood smearing across the steering wheel and the dash.
“But I only let go for a second,” she found herself silently begging, as if someone might forgive her mistake and stop the terrifying swing and slide as she flew off the paved road and tore through some old barbed wire fencing, dragging it behind her until finally, mercifully held up by the tangle of wire, she slid to a stop. She stumbled out of the car, leaving the engine running and falling forward, hands landing hard in the gravel, blood mixing with the dust on the side of the road.
She vomited again and then raised her head, trying to get some bearing. The car’s headlights fell on a sign. “WELCOME!” the sign declared.
A few hours later, a cow wandered through the section of missing fence, and for a short moment, its glossy white coat was illuminated by the car’s headlights. The cow stopped and sniffed, testing the air. Then the cow bent her head and nudged Bret, where she lay face down, blood seeping now from many small wounds all over her body. Bret stirred and managed to lift her head a little. The cow licked her cheek. “Io?” Bret’s voice was weak, barely audible. The cow gently nuzzled Bret’s ear and then stepped over her body and disappeared again into the dark, across state lines.