Issue 4

Hannah is the new girl three doors down who catches eyeballs with a butterfly net while skipping down the sidewalk. You watch in shielded awe from your front porch, wondering where the eyeballs come from because you’ve never seen them falling from the sky yet somehow her net is always full. Your mother hasn’t met Hannah or her family yet and you aren’t supposed to play with anyone your mother doesn’t know but when Hannah asks if you want to see her eyeball collection you say yes without hesitation and follow her into her house and down to the basement where there must be hundreds of them, all different shades of blues, browns, and greens. When Hannah asks what you collect, you say, ‘Stuffed animals,’ and she and the eyeballs all stare at you, unimpressed, and you immediately know that you’ve said the wrong thing. Hannah is cool because she collects eyeballs. You’re not. You look at the floor, tell Hannah that you have to go, that your mother will be worried, and Hannah shrugs, says okay. Then, as you’re walking back to your house, a child’s hand falls from a nearby tree. You pick it up, holding it like you sometimes hold your best friend Ellee’s hand. It feels comfortable. A larger hand then lands on the sidewalk in front of you, and then another and another and another, more and more, all different sizes and colors. You pick them all up, make a pile in your front yard, and consider running back to Hannah’s house to show her, but instead consider how you’re going to get them into the house without your mother seeing. You decide you’ll wait until she’s distracted with dinner, and then you’ll stash them somewhere safe, maybe under your bed. You can show Hannah tomorrow.