Dalí’s Eye
My father was always searching for something. Even in my earliest memories I see him ducking through the crowded streets of far away markets and whispering to locals who would point him in the direction of adventure. His adventures routinely took us through dank, dark passages and over dusty stone walls. “There is treasure all around us, “he would say, “if you only know where to look.” What he did not say, perhaps did not even know, was that there is horror all around us too and that all that glitters is not gold.
I was delighted when his adventures took us to Azure Bay. It was a small fishing village in one of the northern isles where the plastered walls of family homes ran right up to the coastline and blue waters always lapped at the edges of your vision. After a summer of traipsing through hot deserts the salty air was a nice reprieve. I spent much of my time looking through the window of my first floor room and drinking in the bay which seemed to creep right to the lip of the well-worn pane.
He had rented us a house for the fall and winter while he studied for his next adventure. My father didn’t say what exactly he was looking for but the maps in his hastily unpacked study seemed to indicate that it lay somewhere in the waters that fed our little slice of paradise. Daily, he would travel to the docks and speak the captains and fisherman there, pointing and hastily jotting down notes. Then in the evenings he would travel back into town and sit in the dark corners of the pubs, listening to the sea-tales as the men grew drunk from their draught.
Finally, after a month of such study, my father announced that he would be making a week-long trip aboard a trawler. He left so early the next morning that, had I not been wide awake from anticipation, I might have missed his parting. As it was, I just caught him before the outer door could latch. I threw my arms around him and bid him to be careful, asking once again if I could come along. He gave me a stern hug and again said no. I watched him leave as the early morning reds kissed the bay and wished him a safe journey.
During our week apart I did manage to keep busy. I wandered the markets and pretended to be an adventurer like my father. He had arranged for Felipa, a lawyer’s wife across the way, to look in on me and she took her charge very seriously. By that first night I was eating meals with her and her young son, Sal. Those meals quickly became our routine and young Sal quickly took to following me through the markets each day thereafter.
It helped to pass the time, if nothing else, so much so that I almost didn’t notice the absence of my father’s boots on that seventh day. The next morning when I discovered their absence I went to the docks and asked about. Most agreed that the ship would appear that day. So, as afternoon turned to evening I sat upon the docks and waited to see the trawler pull into the bay with my father’s triumphant grin beaming through the evening fog. But as the moon rose high and slipped silver across the black water, I had only Sal’s hand to hold mine. We walked silently up the cobblestone path to our homes and to the warm stew waiting in Felipa’s hearth.
Waiting became my new routine as day after day my patience was rewarded with moonlight and an evening chill. Young though he was, Felipa’s boy could feel my disappointment and said little as we walked the stones each night. His grip came a little tighter and warmer each time and I knew that his young mind could feel my worry.
His mother could too. After a week had passed she sent word to the harbor master and demanded a search. I didn’t understand then, the kind of money that my father had, but the ships were evidence enough of his importance. The next morning a fleet pushed into the blue waters. Felipa wrapped her arm around my shoulder and watched with me, assuring me that they would return with him or not at all.
It would be three days before they would return with the trawler limping behind them. I spied the ships from my bedroom window and sprinted down the cobblestones to reach the docks just as the ropes were being slipped ‘round their holds. My smile fell as I beheld the face of the men leaving the ships. Not one would look me in the eye.
As the last man’s feet left the plank I looked up and saw the captain with his hat in his hand. “Deary,” he said, “we found the trawler but there was no one aboard. Your da’, I’m afraid he’s been lost.” I felt Sal’s hand slide into mine and I squeezed it tight. He led me back to his home and into the arms of his mother.
That evening, after my tears had been spent and Felipa had drifted off to fitful sleep, I made my way to the docks. I stared into the black waters, at once cursing my father and begging him to come home. My vigil lasted into the early morning and the red sun burned off the morning haze that clung to the waters. My eyes and mind were just as foggy which might explain why I did not immediately scream upon seeing his body clinging limply to the rocks.
My thoughts struggled to keep up with my body as I raced beneath the old wooden docks. A scream escaped my dry, panting lips as I reached his cold hands. I was relieved to find that, though cold, they were not stiff. My father was alive!
I was soon surrounded by the muddied boots and rough hands of the dock workers. I found myself being pushed further and further away from him as they lifted his body and moved to the streets. They quickly carried him through the lanes and up to the doctor’s home. They busted through the old man’s door and placed my father on the table, knocking aside jars and a lamp as they did so. The commotion woke the doctor who descended his stairs in four quick jumps despite the long white nightgown threatening to catch his feet. Before I could utter a word, the dock workers and I were cast out and I was left to pace outside the door as the doctor viewed his patient.
The sun was well overhead before the doctor cracked the door and motioned me inside. My father was still pale but warmth had begun to color his cheeks and his breath rattled through his chest in big long gales. “He will need lots of rest and as much broth as you can get him to swallow but he is otherwise fine.” The doctor placed a hand on my shoulder and lifted my chin to face him. “He will need you now and when he has his wits about him he will have many questions to answer.”
I spent the next week nursing my father back from the cold grips that held him. He took only small sips of broth at first and would thrash in his sleep, yelling at unknown terrors. When he woke his eyes were gaunt and haunted. As I fed him he would look through me and open his mouth mechanically to accept the broth. When the bowl emptied his gaze would turn to the sea and his hands would tremble as they gripped the sheet draped across his legs.
But each day more color touched his skin. The dark circles beneath his eyes began to fade and his sleep grew more restful. By the eighth day his eyes looked to mine as I fed him and by the ninth his hand reached for the spoon. Still his gaze was fixed upon the sea and he said little of what had happened. I waited until he could stand and walk about the room before I dared to broach the subject, judging his physical state to be a bellwether of his mental faculties.
I joined him by the window looking out into the bay and sat with him in silence for sometime before speaking. “Father, I…”
“I know you wish to understand what has happened. By now you’ve heard that the other men on the trawler have disappeared without a trace.” He let out a long, labored sigh and stole his gaze from the window. “Take me to the study, we have much to discuss.”
With my help he walked to the study at the far end of the hall. It was just as he had left it, a sprawling mess of maps, artifacts, and all manner of books. He settled into his old leather chair and pointed toward the pile of clothes that he had been wearing when I found him on the shore. Per his fevered instruction they had been placed untouched and unexamined in the room.
I brought the salty, damp clothes to him and set them upon his lap. He immediately began to rifle through them, lifting them up, turning them this way and that. He seemed to grow more frustrated as he searched and his hands turned up only silt and rock.
“It’s not here!”
“Father?”
“Get me the doctor. Get him now!”
The urgency in his voice caused to me to spring into action. I ran out the door and was halfway to the doctor’s home before it swung back on its hinges to the latch. In another moment I was breathless and banging upon the old man’s door. It was only noon day and yet the house was closed up and he did not answer. His nurse and housekeeper seemed to be away as well. Not knowing what else to do, I lifted the window in the back of the home, figuring that I could at least find a clue to where he had gone.
Inside the house was dark. The hearth lay cold and the table still looked as disheveled as the day the dock workers had brought my father in. “Hello?” There was no answer save a distant thump from the upper floor. The sunlight poking through the drawn curtains gave just enough light for me to see my way so I walked carefully to the stairs and then made my way towards the sound.
“Doctor?” Again I heard the thump. In the upper hall there was little light so I placed my right hand upon the wall and guided myself toward the sound. At the end of the hallway I came to two doorways, one to my right and one directly in front of me. My hand lingered on the latch to the right but a flicker in the sliver of sunlight beneath the door in front of me caught my eye. It corresponded with the now steady thump I had heard below. Hesitantly I placed my hand upon the other latch and pushed open the door.
In my years since my time at Azure Bay, I have learned that there are many ways a person can react when their world has changed. When reality slips its bounds and paints for you a new tableau, there are choices your mind must make that forever alter who you are and who you will be. Upon opening that door my mind soaked in the gruesome and bizarre and did not flinch from the visceral reality. I found that, when faced with similar visions, the doctor had not performed so well.
The room smelled of iron, filth, and rot. The walls were splashed with the rust-colored blood of the doctor’s nurse and housekeeper. The ladies lay prostrate upon the floor with bouquets of flowers set atop their necks where their heads should have been. Their terrified faces stared at their bodies from chairs that leaned against the far wall and the doctor sat crumpled in the corner rocking and banging his head repeatedly.
“Doctor!” I ran to him though he was covered in dried blood and what was most certainly his own filth. His head did not turn to my voice and when I turned his eyes to mine they did not see me. I slapped him hard across his face and that brought his vision into focus. I instantly wished I had not done so. His eyes were filled with a malice and fear I had never seen before. I backed away from him unsure what to do next.
He sat there, rocking and eyeing me, saying nothing. Then slowly he reached into his pocket and pulled from it a round marble of swirling color. He held it up to his eyes and peered at me through the smoky glass.
“You are as you seem,” he said to me and his words made little sense to my frightened ears. “They were soulless, a vacuum of color. No substance, only flowers.” He was speaking nonsense but at the very least he seemed content to stay as he was and not to attack me. I walked back to him slowly and took the hand he was not using to hold the marble. I led him like a child out of the house and into the afternoon shadows that clung about the lane outside.
Though I could hear men down at the docks I knew my father’s house was closer so I led the doctor along the lanes and up to our home. He followed without struggle as I walked him through the hall and into my father’s study. Once we reached the study the doctor plopped himself upon the floor and began to peer at my father through the swirling glass. “You have seen,” he said and then began to rock once more.
To his credit, my father did not act disgusted or surprised by the state of the doctor. He turned and asked how I fared. I told him what I had witnessed and he nodded silently as he listened. “I feared as much.” He struggled to lift himself from his chair but collapsed backwards in defeat. “Daughter, I must have that glass. Bring it to me, but do not look within it.”
I walked over to the doctor and held out my hand. The doctor let the marble drop from his hands into mine without a fight and I closed my fingers around the glass to block my sight. In my hands it seemed warm and pulsed with a thrum much like that of a heart. It was comforting in a familiar sort of way and I found myself wanting to disobey and open my hand. “To me!”
I squeezed my hand tighter and walked the marble over to my father. He plucked it from my hand and placed it in his shirt pocket without another glance. The heat seemed to leave me and the air as the marble was put away. “You must run to the town and tell them what has happened. Have someone fetch the doctor, then come home.”
I did as I was told though it took all of the afternoon and most of the evening to accomplish. The moon was once again dancing on the black water before I joined my father back in his study. He had not moved from his chair but the marble had found its way from his pocket to his hand. He rubbed it continuously, only stopping to hold it up to the light.
“It called me here. I know that now,” he said and still he held the glass. “How else could I find such a small thing in the abyss?” He smiled and held it up to the light once more. “It wanted to be found!”
Though I understood his words, I feared their meaning. Had my father lost his senses to this small glass as well? “It called to us and we came to its call. Each one of us looked through. Each one of us saw.”
“Saw? Saw what?”
“Reality, like memory is a broken thing. A clock left melting and changing in the light.”
“Father, you’re scaring me.”
“Persistence is the key…or perhaps belief…disbelief? I don’t know.” Tears began to run down his face as he stared into the swirling colors. “Reality comes like the sea to your window, only perspective holds it in.”
His words frightened me. He had never spoken to me like this, like an adult, like one who would understand his meaning. I grabbed a hold of his shoulder and shook with all my might. “Father, what is it? Tell me what you have found!”
He turned his eyes from the glass and found mine. His smile had an eerie upturn as he spoke. “The truth, daughter, I have found truth and it is beautiful to behold.” He collapsed in exhaustion and I led him back to bed. I took the glass from his hand and placed it in his pocket, careful not to steal so much as a glance.
I dined on cold bread and cheese that night as I worried over my father. My sobs led me into troubled sleep and my fears paraded through my dreams. What would life be like if they had to take him from me? I would be alone and the daughter of a nutter. Who would take me then?
I woke late in the morning and scrambled to my father’s room only to find his bed empty. His study was similarly abandoned. I raced back to my room and dressed quickly so that I could head outside. My fingers caught in my boot laces and I cursed under my breath as I slowed to tie them right.
I found him in the town square with that damnable glass held to his eye. He was spinning round and looking at everyone and everything that passed, exclaiming in horror, delight, or surprise as his eyes settled on each new vision. His expression softened as his eyes found me and he happily waved me over.
“So much to see! So much hidden beneath the veil!”
“Father, I…”
“Look here!” He pointed to the pond in the middle of the square. “Tell me, what do you see?”
It was a normal pond with a small fountain in the middle and swans basking lazily in the sun. I said as much. “Yes but what you do not see are the elephants drinking from the bottom up!” And he was right; I certainly did not see that.
“There!” He pointed to a man walking swiftly by. “What do you see?”
“Father he is just a merchant. You’re frightening me.”
“No!” He stamped his feet. “Look again.”
“I’m sure I don’t…”
“He walks on stilts above the crowd and views us with a long nose. He sees himself above those he walks amongst.”
He pointed again. “And those ladies there, what do you see?”
I turned my head and followed his finger. “They are just two maids headed to market.”
“No and no. They are vapors, all flowers and no substance, just as the doctor said.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me forward. “The docks! There you will see.”
He pulled me down towards the docks as I struggled to keep up with his hurried pace. “The ships, the people, I see it all now, worlds layered upon each other…” He was lost in a kaleidic display that seemed to fill only his eyes. He spun from one wonder to the next, gasping, smiling, trembling. Perhaps it was fear that welled up inside my heart, perhaps anger. All I know is that as I watched him, my father’s mind was crumbling before me and I knew the glass to be the cause.
Without thinking I reached up and pulled it from his unsuspecting fingers. As I closed my fist around it he howled like an animal caught in a trap. He swung wildly for me and I knew that he would not rest until this thing that had bewitched him was far from his reach. I ran down to the furthest pier with my father’s footsteps closing behind me.
He yelled and cursed at me to stop but I kept running, blind to anything but the growing sea before me. So focused was I upon the blue that I did not see the thick arm of the harbor master sweep out in front of me, lifting me into the air. I dangled, red-faced and breathless as my father reached us on the pier.
He clawed at my hands but I only closed my fist tighter around the glass. Seeing the cause of the trouble, the harbor master closed his other hand about my wrist, causing it to open. He deftly dropped me and scooped up the marble as it fell. “Now then, what’s all this?” He held it into the light and looked towards the bay.
I couldn’t tell you then what he saw but later reports of his ravings described giants rising from the bay, carrying the ships upon their backs. He stood transfixed and open-mouthed, lost in the images before him. Then he started to scream.
The dock workers came running at the commotion and soon we were surrounded by rough hands, thick arms, and thicker heads. At first they shook the screaming man which had little effect. Then, following the harbor master’s gaze, one of the workers plucked the glass from his fingers and held it to his own eyes. “No water…,” was all he said as he looked through the glass and then without, over and over again.
Soon they were all passing the glass around, having elbowed me and my father out of the way. Some cried, some screamed like the harbor master, others simply stared, but they all kept looking at the prismatic reality hidden in the glass. This thing had them mesmerized and I began to understand what had happened to the doctor. The glass had forever broken what he knew; trapping him in a reality he knew to be false. It was only logical that he began to make the world match what he had seen. He had to reconcile vision and reality.
As I watched them, I wondered how long it would be until the minds of these dock men took similar turns. What visions would their hands need to bring into this world? Already some had begun to walk towards the edge of the pier with eyes looking far to the horizon, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings. It wasn’t until the first one walked straight off the edge that I understood their intent. They were walking into their vision; they did not feel the water slip around their body nor the burning as it filled their lungs. I suspect the same had happened to the men aboard the trawler. Their bodies and minds had abandoned ship.
More and more of them headed towards the edge. My father did nothing to stop them; he stood there nodding with approval as though this behavior made perfect sense. I grabbed at their hands, pulled at their legs, even tried to push them back, but they were so much bigger than I. One by one, they walked into the sea.
Desperate, my eyes fell to the back of the pack where I saw the worker who held the glass. He was no longer looking through it, it was held loosely in his hand as he too walked towards the sea. I ducked below the trunks of arms and wound my way through a maze of legs to reach him. He didn’t even turn to me as I stole the glass from his grasp.
Though I held it, the workers took no notice. They continued to walk silently into the water. A crowd had begun to gather and townspeople were jumping into the sea, trying to save the men and pull them to shore. Those who were saved continued to struggle against the hands that held them, hungry for the sea. I didn’t know what to do. How could I break such a spell?
And that’s when it clicked. It was only glass after all. Perhaps breaking it was all that was needed! I ran through crowds and back towards the land. Though it seemed the whole town was now gathered, no one took notice as I slipped beneath the docks. Once there I found the biggest rock I could. I placed the glass upon the ground and dropped the rock upon it with all the force I could muster.
It did not shatter. When I lifted the rock I saw two halves so even and so smooth it looked as though it had been cut by a jeweler instead of muddy rock. Above me the movement of feet had stopped and the commotion of worry turned to question and confusion. What I had done seemed to have worked!
For a moment I was tempted to keep these halves for myself. Perhaps with its power broken I could better withstand the visions the glass held. But common sense prevailed; I knew that such things were not meant for our eyes. I picked up the two halves and flung the glass into the sea. In that brief moment, as they spun through the air, I risked a glimpse. I saw what others had seen and I understood. They had plucked the eye of a god from the ocean and had the curtains of reality pushed open. That bit of light will stay with me all my days.
My father was never the same after that. He never again looked for treasure. The light had left him and so he haunted our home, drained of all mirth and purpose. He no longer raved about what he had seen but I cold tell by the way he looked at those who came to see him that his sight was forever changed. He would stare intently at the most mundane things, his eyes fixed in recognition.
I stayed with him for all his days and I tried everything to break the spell that held him. Doctors, spiritualists, shamans, none were of any use but we saw them all. We tried treatments and meditations, excursions and lectures, but we only grew older and a bit poorer each time. Still, I did my best. I tried to give him a life and show him all the marvels of this world.
Despite my efforts, it was decades before I saw him smile again. At first his sudden change made no sense to me. We were visiting a local gallery that was having an exhibition on surrealism. It seemed to be all the rage then. I had taken to him to dozens of such events before and he reacted little if at all each time.
But on this day, my father began to smile and then to laugh. I rushed to him, thinking perhaps something was wrong and that was when I saw what he was looking at. There upon the walls of the gallery hung pictures of the reality he had seen. Everything he had described to me and certainly more, was depicted upon the canvas in bright colors. I felt the room spin and collapsed upon a bench to catch my breath. As I held my hand to my chest and looked down to steady my breathing a pair of finely polished shoes appeared next to me.
“My lady, are you alright?”
I looked up to find an eccentric man with a waxed upturned mustache staring intently at me. At first I did not recognize so strange a face but his eyes pulled my mind back to Azure Bay. “Sal?” A smile touched the corners of his mouth and he nodded with a wink. It was then I noticed his cane. A fine band was wrapped around the top of the neck and it was separated on two sides by a swirling glass. He had the marble halves I had tossed so long ago! How had he found them? How had they found him?
The sight stunned me to silence and he was once more adrift in the crowds before my voice could escape my trembling lips. I turned this way and that, hoping to see him once more and hoping that doing so would help me understand. But I lost him in the sea of faces. The glass was once more adrift, moving far from one who would break its spell.
I never found him. Perhaps he did not wish me to. I do not know. I pulled my transfixed father from the gallery and out onto the steps. My father pulled against my arm as I caught my breath. He wanted to go back inside. “Not now. We will come back.” I grasped his hand more firmly and marched us down the steps. Still he pulled at me, not wanting to leave this oasis of a reality long desired. “Not now,” I said again in a more commanding tone. “Look,” I grabbed a bulletin from the bin at the bottom of the steps and handed it to him, “it says the show will be here for three more weeks.” The pamphlet was printed with a few images of the paintings inside and this seemed to quiet him for the moment.
I brought him home and helped him to bed. It was the most excitement he had in years. Even as he drifted to sleep he held the paper in his hand. It was like he was afraid to lose sight of it all over again. When his breathing finally slowed and his tight fist opened, I pulled it from his fingers and placed it upon his bedside table.
I only spared the pamphlet a glance as I turned off his light. The name that graced the header read simply: Salvador Dalí.
