The Green Eye

By Greg Ballinger

Doctor Carter had just finished replying to his emails, when there was a rapid knocking at his door. “Come in,” he exhaled. “Ah, nurse Ripley.”

“Please, call me Beth, are you busy?” Beth smiled, entering the room.

Carter almost laughed. “Come in, sit down, I could use a break.” Carter took a sip of his coffee, grimaced, then took another. “Drink?”

“I’m fine,” Beth answered. “I’m trying to keep a clear head.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you, off the record.”

“Sounds serious.”

“I have a patient in the psych-ward I’ve been monitoring for a few days now, paranoid delusions, high levels of anxiety, and possible personality disorder.”

“Go on.”

“He thinks there’s something living inside him,” Beth explained. “Do you remember the comet on the news, a few weeks ago?”

“The green comet,” Carter confirmed.

“Right,” Beth chimed. “He’s claiming that it’s affected his mind.”

“Paranoid delusions are just that, delusions, triggered by many factors; stress, narcotics, environmental upbringing,” Carter listed. “I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you the processes that your patient will need to go through with regards to therapy and medication.” 

Beth concurred by nodding her head. “It’s just,” Beth continued, “I had another patient brought in today, with the exact same delusion.”

Carter leant back into his chair. “How are they similar?”

“Enough to flag it as unusual, in my mind at least.”

“Who are they?”

“The first patient is Isidore Newman, twenty-eight, with no history of mental illness,” Beth stated. “I currently have him under twenty-four-hour surveillance in the ward.”

“Do you have anything you can show me?”

“I have videos of the interviews,” Beth confirmed, pulling out her phone. 

On the screen, an image appeared of a weary-looking, unshaven man. “I know I sound crazy,” Isidore coughed, scratching his face. “It’s inside me, I can feel it, tightening its grip.”

“It may seem real,” Beth’s voice chimed in, “but we’ve found nothing physically wrong with you.”

“Not physically, I keep telling you, it’s in my mind,” Isidore wheezed, tapping his head. 

Beth skipped along a little further and it showed Isidore covered in scratches and looking even more distraught. “It was the comet,” Isidore wheezed. “The dust, it infected me.”

“Wouldn’t more people be infected, if that was the case?” Beth asked, evenly.

“Everyone’ll be infected,” Isidore twitched. “Once you become aware of it, there’s no going back.”

“When did you become aware, Isidore?”

“I was driving,” Isidore recalled. “My mind switched off and I started to hear it.”

“You hear voices, Isidore?”

“Not voices, a clicking in my head, it wouldn’t stop.”

Beth skipped along, showing Isidore now restrained in his chair. “It’s an invasion!” Isidore screamed, twitching violently, his face deeply cut with scratches. 

“There’s no invasion, Isidore,” Beth reassured.

“It’s the green eye!” Isidore spat out and Beth stopped the video.

“We were going to sedate him,” Beth explained to Carter, “but then this happened.”

The video switched to Isidore, still restrained, but sitting perfectly still, looking at the camera.

“You seem better, Isidore,” Beth continued, and Isidore tilted his head. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“Release me,” Isidore rasped.

“I can’t release you Isidore, I don’t want you to harm yourself.”

“Release me,” Isidore repeated.

“What will you do if I release you, Isidore?”

“Infect you all,” Isidore warned, and Beth stopped the video.

Carter raised both eyebrows and looked at the frozen image of Isidore for a few moments. “Chilling, there’s another one?”

“A forty-two-year-old yoga teacher, Elizabeth Morton,” Beth explained. “She came in earlier today.”

“I’ve always meditated to relax,” Elizabeth began, scratching her skin. “But I must’ve evoked a spirit, because I saw it.”

“Saw what?” Beth queried.

“The eye,” Elizabeth shuddered. “I haven’t meditated since, for fear I’ll see it again.”

“What’s so bad about the eye?”

“It’s in my head, and the more I think about it, the more it takes over,” Elizabeth sobbed, and Beth skipped the video along. “The comet brought it here,” Elizabeth wailed despairingly, clawing at her face. “The green eye will come for you too!”

The video cut out.

“Very similar delusions,” Carter surmised.

“Too similar to be a coincidence.”

“Coincidences do happen, monitor them for any changes and keep me informed.”

“I did some of my own inquiries,” Beth went on. “I rang our sister-ward and they have similar cases, four patients with the same delusion.”

“Four or five patients with the same delusion does not call for mass-hysteria,” Carter promptly shut down. “Patients have delusions about the end of the world all the time.”

“Not with such specific information,” Beth pointed out. 

“It’s probably something going viral on the internet, or a television commercial doing the rounds.”

“These people have no history of mental illness, and now they’re collectively panicking about a green eye.”

“Enough!” Carter demanded, banging the table. “What do you want me to do?

“There’s one other thing,” she added, in a quiet voice. “If I tell you, it’s confidential, right?”

“Between you, me and the fly on the wall,” Carter promised her.

“I’ve started seeing it,” Beth admitted, in a whisper.

“Seeing what?”

“The green eye.”

Carter gave Beth a shrewd look. “Beth, you’re around patients talking about a green eye all day, of course it’s going to be on your mind.”

“It’s in my mind,” Beth corrected.

“You need a rest,” Carter said, standing up. “Take some time off, come back when you’ve got your head straight, I’ll get someone to cover you." Carter smiled, and put a reassuring hand on Beth’s shoulder, before ushering her towards the door. 

Once gone, Carter returned to his desk and continued with his work. As he typed, the familiar clicking of the keys rang out, until he became acutely aware of something in his peripheral vision and stopped. Lifting his fingers from the keyboard, the clicking continued regardless, and although he couldn’t see it yet, he knew he was being watched.

Gregory Ballinger is an avid reader, writer and time traveller.

When Gregory is not reading or writing, he often travels back to the 1800’s in England where he likes to spend his time in country gardens as an ornamental hermit contemplating life in the cosmos.

Gregory also likes cats.