THE EYES, THE MURAL

The eyes stare at me with intensity. I can’t see them but I can feel them trace my every movement. With every step I take I’m reminded of that song by Sting and The Police made popular by Puff Daddy, Every Breath You Take. It is difficult to describe the eyes. You could use phrases and words like Voyeuristic, Stalker, Big Brother, Predator or whatever but they are there and I can’t shake them off.

I stumble and sense them squint with trepidation. I smile wryly. For some reason, these eyes make me feel safer. Maybe it’s the fact that I know someone is always watching. I know it should make me uneasy, uncomfortable and filled with worry. But instead I feel calm and confident.

I turn into an abandoned field and stare at a huge old wall.  It is huge and full of a lot of things on it. It’s safe to call it a mural. The artist that sketched this must be some genius. Mural…funny how certain situations and words remind me of songs. A few lines from Lupe Fiasco’s song Mural echo in my head.

 “We're all chemicals, vitamins and minerals, Vicodin with inner tubes, wrapped around the arm. To see the vein like a chicken on the barn, Top Cat chat, let's begin another yarn” 

What a description. How descriptive. Like this mural in front of me. 

“Now what's a coffin with a scratched ceiling? And what's the talking without the match feeling, that’s buried living?” 

Poetic and abstract. What one would refer to as being deep. Life and death fused in such a short line.

I feel the eyes at the back of my head staring at me. I ignore them and instead concentrate on the wall in front of me. It portrays a story that seems unfinished. I trace its roots. Right there at the far left is a beautiful scene of a seed being planted while the next shows it blossoming through a crack in the wall. How resilient of this little seed. The mural on my far right depicts a glorious tree, dominating in both presence and beauty. The attention to the tree’s every detail takes my breath away and instinctively I know that the great tree is the destination for the little seed. Instinct tells me that but logic doesn’t see how the little seed can make it out of the crack in the wall. I become aware of the eyes again and I feel their condescending gaze; they acknowledge my logic. It is obvious by how the eyes burn through my skull that they don’t see how the little seed can become anything else but little.

The eyes can’t speak directly to me but they are a noisy companion. With every step I take I am aware of their domineering gaze that I sometimes want even though I dislike it. I feel like the eyes know more because they have seen more. But my gut, my instinct tells me that maybe there is a lot more than we both can see.

The centre of the mural tells more tales. Tales of life and death, some that end before they begin, some whose splendour brings tears to my eyes. Some complete, some barely touched, they take me on a wanderlust journey and the incomplete gives me the urge to complete but I know that I am not great enough to finish the masterpiece. Perhaps the masterpiece has no end.  At first I only thought the artist is a genius now I know he is one.