myfanwy collins

Wooden Bowl (an excerpt)

by Myfanwy Collins

She handed me a carved wooden bowl and said, “This is where we put your sister’s eyes.”

“Her eyes?”

“After she took them from her face; we put them in here.” She indicated the center of the bowl. My sister’s eyes had been there. Brown eyes, pupils dilated in a wooden bowl.

So what she was telling me was that my sister could no longer see. What was I supposed to do with that knowledge? I took the bowl from her and placed it on a high shelf.

“Thank you,” I said. She nodded and walked away.

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What I didn’t ask her was what had they done with the eyes after they took them out of the bowl. Maybe they had put them in brine and set them in the root cellar to pickle.

It was decided. I would go to the basement and look, but the door locked from the outside only and so I would be cautious. (Once my sister had locked me in there and stood on the other side of the door and laughed as I banged and hollered, “Let me out.” She would never let me out.)

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