Making Eyes
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Making Eyes
“You are painting eyes on the balloon.” I had found him high up on the scaffolding, paint pot in hand. Laboriously I had climbed up to discover what he was about. Laboriously he continued in his task, concentrating on the paint and brush.
“I am,” he said. The iris was green, striped with brown. The pupil a dark oval the size of his head. Around the eye was a thick black line, that turned into a tail at the end. No, a wing, that was what they called it, winged eyeliner.
“Is that normal? Of course it is.” I looked down into the hanger. It was quiet yet not deserted, mechanics walking about on errands, a pair of porters drinking coffee by the small door – a door large enough to let a truck through, yet dwarfed by the balloon entrance. Clearly he wasn’t doing this in secret.
As though enormous eyes on a balloon would remain secret for long.
“It’s about birds isn’t it.” He did not turn or stop. “Birds see the eyes. They think this is a creature, a predator, and then they avoid the balloon. Don’t get caught up in the ropes or obscure the solar cells.”
“Aye, that too.” I though that was all I was going to get from him. “Cleaning bird muck off is a full-time job.”
A joke? Or a complaint. In any case we’d made a connection. “A protection spell. Ritual. With eyes the balloon can see danger, avoid it.” Aeronauts are superstitious, everyone knows that. And why not, at the mercy of wind and weather, high above the world, closer to heaven than to earth.
He finished with one flick of the paintbrush and looked at it closely. “Protection? I think so. I do think so.” His hand was bandaged. Looking I could see a smear of blood on the brush.
“Are you alright?” I asked, pointing at his hand.
“Oh yes. I cut cleanly.” He put the hand on the off-white envelope. “You can wake now.”
As I puzzled at this the eye blinked, then turned, looked at me.
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