An Eye from Death
A prose-poetry inspired by When We Were Young One Day
By Br. Harold Reynolds FSC
Kyoko Honda, Yun-Erh Hsu, and Lyza Jaurigue
“An Eye from Death”
11:59 p.m.;
The lone fish swims in the aquarium, endlessly. My empty stare continued to bore holes in the wall. My eyelids fluttered with each blink of the numbers on the microwave, waiting for sixty seconds to pass.
A minute before 11:59 p.m.;
I saw the twins blowing on the burning piece of pancake and took a whiff of yesterday’s stick of cigarette. The crickets sang, the fish swam, and the streetlamp flickers through the translucent curtains, but the stagnant void remains; lifeless on my reeking deathbed.
Two minutes before 11:59 p.m.;
I lay on the tiled tub with my head on the edge. My breath could no longer reach air, but the girls still bathed my decaying body. One brushed my thin and dead hair, while the other cried desperately as she could not keep my eyes open. I knew I had no point of return, but they didn’t.
that I am simply a soul inside a lifeless body
Three minutes before 11:59 p.m.;
My linen sheets were soft against my dry and cold skin while I sat, my limbs simply falling on the side of the bed. A manly voice echoed throughout the room as the twins fell on the wood floors, helplessly. All I could hear was the old and rusty alarm clock placed on my nightstand; ticking echoing through the silence. Its hands stop working like they usually do, still pointed at 11:59. It never goes beyond that.
I was always stuck a minute before death.
Would it not be interesting to see the story from the old woman’s point of view?
Since the story itself already narrates the overall plot, we decided to dive deep into an unexpected point of view and focus more on the lives of those who are living in the infamous House of the Living Dead.
“An Eye from Death”
This is the title because this prose-poetry shows the omniscient point of view of someone dead.
“The lone fish swims in the aquarium, endlessly.” Symbolizes the feeling of nearing death.
“My empty stare continued to bore holes in the wall.”
This is a foreshadowing part on how she was already dead but her daughters treat her like she's alive because they still can't accept what happened.
“A minute before 11:59 p.m.”
The subtitles show the time going backward rather than onward because that was what the daughters desperately wanted. They wanted their mom back.
“took a whiff of yesterday’s stick of cigarette”
Figuratively. This symbolizes the coping mechanisms of a lot of teenagers who struggle to seek for help.
“I lay on the tiled tub with my head on the edge. My breath could no longer reach air, but the girls still bathed my decaying body.”
The twins were pretending that their mother is still alive, but are slowly realizing the truth as they cry about what's beyond their sight.
“A manly voice echoed throughout the room as the twins fell on the wood floors, helplessly.”
This shows the part wherein the police came into their house and saw the secret the twins were trying to keep for quite awhile.
“I was always stuck a minute before death.”
This is because her daughters struggle to accept her death.