The Eye

Lauren Jenio

To find an object that means a lot to someone usually is not a difficult thing to do, everyone has at least one thing that they cherish. To find an object that one not only cherishes but also hides otherwise long lost memories, that is a different story. I had to delve down deep to recover the object that needed to be written about, it may not look like much to other's but that's just it. An object is just an object unless there are memories attached to it, then it becomes a treasure to the holder.

This treasure of mine is a stuffed “animal” eyeball. It's about as big around as a dinner plate, The iris is a green color and surrounding that it has little red threads that are made to look like veins. Since this eye is extremely old and has been through a lot the threads are slowly falling out, so it has kind of a frazzled look about it. At the moment it is sitting on my futon back in New Jersey under the care of my father and step-mother, eventually it will work it's way through the mail so it can join me here where I want it.

This eyeball has many memories behind it but they all start out with how it came into my possession in the first place. Believe it or not my father and I did not just walk into a toy store and purchase a stuffed eyeball, we won it at a claw machine while blowing wads of money at the boardwalk one day. It was a beautiful sunny day at Sandy Hook, you know one of those perfect days that one just feels the need to get out of the house and do something completely pointless. Our completely pointless idea was to make our way over to the beach and lounge around all day like a bunch of slugs. This worked out great for the both of us for a while until we started frying no matter how much sunscreen we applied. Picking up our blankets and other belongings we hiked them back to my father's Saturn. Not wanting to return home just yet we made our way down the boardwalk. Everything was just dandy until I spotted the arcade. All those flashing lights, loud random sounds, the squeals of children who just won a cheap toy after shelling about ten dollars of their parents money into one machine. There is really nothing better than the feeling of walking into an arcade with a pocket full of someone else's change. With the wind at my back the smell of sea salt wafting in and out of the room I stalked my way around trying to spot the perfect machine to spend my father's money on.

After about ten minutes and many miniature tantrums later I walked out dejected, robbed of my pride and former optimistic behavior. Crying, I was about six at the time, I ran into my father's arms and whined about all the other kids getting the toys and I got squat. My father then stood up and led me back into the cacophony of light and sound. I looked up at him, his face a mask of determination, I knew that a miracle was about to happen and my little heart leaped with anticipated joy.

He crammed five dollars into one of those change machines and walked over to the closest arcade box, I didn't even take in what was inside I was awestruck watching my father go to work. He inserted the change into the slot and focused his eyes on the perfect toy, the one with the best position for the claw to grab onto. He gripped the joystick, rotating, pulling, pushing, and sometimes taking his hand off to check the position from the side. The time on the machine was running out and if he did not press it soon then the machine would decide for him, within the last five seconds he breathed out and pushed down the button to lower the claw.

Slowly the claw was lowered and encased the toy, on its way back up the toy began to slip from its grasp until on of the legs of the claw got caught in a thread. It held on all the way to the drop box where it fell into the lower compartment so that the player could receive it. The machine went wild, banging and popping, screaming, “WINNER WINNER”. My father smiled down at me but I couldn't see anything, my eyes were filled with tears as I rammed myself into the prize box and snatched it out. This was the first time I ever held the eye and it was a beautiful moment. My dad reached down and picked me up, I tried to thank him but no words would come out, instead I strangled him in a hug. I rode on his shoulders all the way back to the car with the eye held high. He normally did not let me ride on his shoulders because he thought I was too big. I think he just wanted to get me out of the arcade as fast as he could so that he would still have some money left when we got home. That was perfectly fine with me though because I got what I wanted. Grasping onto my new stuffed eye we made it home with little to no speech, I think my father enjoyed that as well old people just don't like all the noises and lights in the arcade, they get headaches.

It was a long car ride home because I was trying to come up with a name for the eye. I named everything I owned back when I was a wee little tyke, my father thought that naming an eyeball was kind of pointless but it was tradition. Though the ride was a half hour long I still had come up with nothing, finally we decided that “The Eye” was enough. We arrived back at the house and I preceded to show off the Eye to anyone that happened to wander by, everyone thought it was amazing. Later that night after a vigorous shower to get the accumulated sand off I trudged off to bed, dragging the Eye with me. This is where the tradition started; I hopped into bed and waited for my dad to tuck me in like he did every night. When he came I was clutching the Eye, he looked at it for a moment and grabbed it, patting the top of my head with it he looked down and said, “I got my eye on you,”. I giggled gave him a hug and passed out, it had been a long day for me.

This nightly ritual became a regular thing and lasted through many years, it got to the point that I could not fall asleep until my father uttered those six words. It saw me through my parents divorce where a majority of my time was spent at my mother's house. My dad sent it with me so that I would know that he would always be there if I ever needed anything.

Many toys had come and gone over the years, most I lost interest in or broke. The Eye was one of those toys that never got too old though, not because it was just so much fun to play with, but because it had a deeper meaning to it. The Eye was not just some toy I received at Christmas or a birthday party, it was given to me out of pity and that means so much more.

Now, eleven years later, I want the Eye back in my possession. I do not need it, I doubt I will ever need it again for now I am on my own. I have started a new way of life where I don't need any kind of authority breathing down my neck or telling me what to do and when to do it. I want the eye because it houses memories from the good and bad times of my childhood and it is a symbol for my father's love. I want it because it stuck with me, I have to preserve it through the years because after all it is only a cheap carnival prize.