Locking Eyes

To look into the eyes of a stranger on the street, or, even one’s neighbor’s whom one has never spoken to before, is a foolish, dangerous endeavor that leaves one breathless and consumed by fear. You reach down deep into your self, search for justification and meaning, but find only emptiness, while the eyes of the stranger seem to be pregnant with meaning and force, as if the entire world were inflicting itself upon you, filling your lungs with an overabundance of air, such that you cannot exhale or inhale; you feel that you should say something, but intense fear and compunction keeps you from doing so. It is like being lost in the middle of a giant labyrinth—the land around you is endless and flat, the wind blows through the tall grass—and coming to the conclusion that you will die there alone beneath the dark cloudy skies, even as you are being watched, but by whom? You can never say. For the eyes you are looking into are a stranger’s eyes, and they very well might be the eyes of a dead man, or a spirit, or a god walking upon the earth. In any event, you quickly look away, and punish yourself with shameful thoughts for the rest of the day.