Pachuco Got The Blues

Eyeball Kid takes it out, rolls it in his palm, and gives it a wipe. Tennis ball optic, on thin wiry strings. But it won't go back in. It doesn't fit. How did it ever fit? It's huge. Maybe the air made it swell? This black head hole is certainly not large enough. Little Urchin Sister peers in. What colour would it be, the brain? Grey he tells her, then says no, that's a myth, it should be pink. She tells him she can't see any colour. Just black. That's queer, he thinks. He tries one more time to get it back in his head but gives up, opting instead for the breast pocket of his soft cotton shirt. It fits! The wires waver, the connection between head and heart stretched taut.

Shattered pieces of mother lie on the frozen ice of the kitchen floor. House clouds sit low and bulbous, crushing necks and snapping spines. Bare bulbs and cobwebs scatter in a cold concrete shell, a shelf-life shame. In the corner, Eyeball Kid and Little Urchin Sister cower, they hear the bugs in the next room. Some are crab-like, orange and flesh-coloured. Others are dark brown and hairy. They all try to get in under the door but once they make it they keep slipping on the ice, sliding back out. 

Eyeball Kid gets up suddenly and overdoes it on the ice, sending him around like a spinning top. Little Urchin Sister pokes him with a bony finger and he comes to a dizzying stop. The other side of the room is expansive; to the west is a world of glassy mountains and frozen landscapes. The kitchen floor of ice is an off-shoot of a huge glacier. Eyeball Kid and Little Urchin Sister head out west as the house clouds hit the floor and billow all about. 

Stop, Sister says, half way across the gigantic sheet of ice. Look, Sister says. Underneath white ice, the grey figures of crocodiles or alligators lie. Eyeball Kid can't remember the difference. Asleep or frozen dead, nobody knows, but their eyes reflect the shifting light. They must be waiting for it to melt, Sister says. Eyeball Kid steps in slush and finds sopping feet. Better run, so they run. White sky, white land, white air. Nothing but white, the two children run, feeling the melt behind them, hearing snapping jaws. Little balls of colour squirm on the horizon. Eyeball kid grabs Sister's hand and heads for the colour. His loose eye is out of his pocket and banging off his chest and arm and sometimes his head. For a moment he worries that the wires will break and he will lose it and never get it back into his head. But it doesn't break. 

With a waterfall in their wake, they lie belly down on dry land. It's bouncy and springy, the soil, like it's made of rubber. Eyeball Kid looks at the balls of colour, and sees that they are gigantic sombreros rotating on a ferris wheel, towering over a bevy of mushroom-shaped huts and a crumbling, stone well. The wheel spins so fast that the colours mix into one kaleidoscopic swirl. 

A singing voice calls out. 'My baby done left me, my baby wouldn't stay, she took all the money, my baby's gone away.' Eyeball kid spies an extravagantly dressed man. His name is Pachuco, and he got the blues. Empty sky and ocean depths, Pachuco got the blues. Azure and cobalt, navy and aqua he done got them all. Grin and bear sombrero, Pachuco got the blues. 

'I was king of summertime, he says. I was the lord of music and laughter and joy. But then my baby done left me.' 

Eyeball Kid asks about baby. Pachuco says he got all the blues, except his baby, and young baby blue. They done left him. Then he jumps down a well, and Little Urchin Sister runs over and peers in. Eyeball kid calls to her. Can you see it? Can you see Pachuco's Cadaver? She tells him she can't see any colour. Just black. 

Eyeball Kid and his Little Urchin Sister go inside one of the nearby mushroom-shaped huts. They go past the cobwebs and head for the cold concrete corner. The floor turns to ice in front of them. Cowering, they wait for the bugs to come, the houseclouds to descend, and they can still hear Pachuco singing his song from the underworld. He done got the blues.

Eyeball Kid Versus The Moon Rabbit

Cowering between the Maternity Hospital and the Cemetary, the two children wait out the night. Beneath the cobbled bridge they sit, careful to keep themselves obscured from the loitering Moon.

Little Urchin Sister shivers. 'S cold, she says. Eyeball Kid takes off his woolly hat and gestures her to come close. His ears are crimson and twice their normal size, and they radiate. Sister blinks as the wall of heat crashes into her, her big indigo eyes watering a little. Eyeball Kid has a heating problem, he is top-heavy, and his feet are clumsy lumps of ice. They crunch and crack in his shoes when he walks. His eyeball strings are slung over his shoulder, and his left optic ensures the siblings aren't the victims of an ambush. He fights the temptation to put his fist into his eye-hole, just to see if it fits. He's scared he won't be able to get it out again.

Tell me a story, Sister says.

She's annoying, Eyeball Kid decides. She's dumb and she's little and she's always asking me things.

Okay, he says.

There once was a rabbit named Amos. He grew up in the deepest, darkest burrow in the land. On the surface, an army of marching Jaws, snapped and gobbled up any rabbit who ventured up. All the rabbits were very frightened, and got hungry and cold and very sick.

What did they do? Sister sniffled wetly then wiped her nose with her long, crinkled sleeve.

Well, all the rabbits tried to burrow their way up, but they couldn't find any safe place, so they were trapped. But Amos went the other way. He kept digging and digging downward, and all the other rabbits thought he was crazy. Then one day, a long way from the other rabbits, Amos broke through the soil. He hopped out onto the surface, and at first it felt funny, upside-down funny, but after a short time it felt perfect. It was nightime, and the moon was so big and close, Amos could feel its soft, warm breath. And the other rabbits eventually made their way down the tunnel too, and they were delighted they had found a safe place to live.

Did they say thank you to Amos?

No, because when they got there he was gone. Only the warm, yellow moon was there, smiling at them.

What happened to Amos?

He wasn't a rabbit anymore. He found the way. So now he rides across the sky in a chariot and making sure the Moon keeps the other rabbits safe. And now he's called Soma, the upside-down Amos. As long as he's up there the Moon will look after them all.

Is Soma up there now? Sister asks, peeking around the bridge overhead.

Eyeball Kid shivers, his ears grow even hotter, and he tells her Soma is up there, looking out for them.

Maybe we can go home, if the Moon is good and won't eat us up? Sister asks.

Okay, says Eyeball Kid.

They move out from underneath the bridge, and Eyeball Kid screws his woolly hat onto Sister's head. The Moon is good, he tells himself. The Moon is good. He plucks his Eye-wires with tense fingers as a trillion angry stars stare down. They glower and grow closer and he can feel the violence coming soon, the shards of exploding crystal ready to fall and cut and tear them to pieces.

The Maternity Hospital is now miles to the left, the Cemetary miles to the right. Eyeball Kid takes Little Urchin Sister's hand and squeezes, and his feet crunch and crack in his shoes as he walks.