The Girl With One Eye

The girl with one eye sat by herself at lunch, like she always did.  She had tried to make friends when she started at the new school, like she always did.  For some reason, other kids never seemed to have one eyed girls on their list of potential friends.

She wasn’t sure why.  She knew she was funny.  Her mom and dad always laughed at the silly things she could come up with.  But the other kids looked away or didn’t say anything when she tried to join in.  As always, she became one of the outsiders, the ones none of the other kids pay attention to, unless they needed to do some bullying.  Except, they didn’t even bully her.  They just pretended like she didn’t exist.

By the time she made it to high school, she had already resigned herself to a solitary life regarding other people.  That was going to be okay, as far as she was concerned.  She had already learned something really important, a long time ago.  Animals don’t give a shit how many eyes people have.

Even though Cassandra’s parents had an unfortunate combination of genes that shorted her an eye, they shared a love of animals.  When you grow up in a house filled with pets, it is impossible not to bond with them.  Works every time.  Cassie noted that, while humans struggled with how to make eye contact with her, animals never had that problem.

In fact, Cassie had the opposite problem with her menagerie of pets.  When she was with humans, she felt the terrible pain of rejection, all of the time.  She had learned to push it way down in the back of her heart.  But she knew it would never go away.

When she was around her pets, the one eyed girl had a different problem.  Each one of them wanted all of her attention, all of the time.  There was always competition, often barking, biting or clawing.  Cassie knew she would never be able to make them all happy.  There was just one of her.

When Cassie sat by herself at the lunchroom table, she didn’t think about the kinds of things the other outsiders were thinking about.  She didn’t think about whether a tattoo or new clothes would make her popular.  She didn’t think about going to parties, getting drunk, and having sex with any boy that would have her.  She didn’t think about doing drugs so she could escape from the pain for a while.  She didn’t think about suicide.

Cassie spent her time thinking about her grades, and getting the scholarship, and which veterinary school she should attend.  And all of the other things she was going to do after the practice was established, like the no-kill shelter she was going to set up.  The girl with one eye had a plan.  She wasn’t worried about what the kids around her were doing.  She was worried that if she didn’t get her ducks in a row, she wouldn’t accomplish everything she wanted to do in life, before she ran out of time.

She didn’t spend all of her lunch period thinking about the plan.  She also watched the other kids, from a distance.  You can see a lot with one eye.  When people don’t notice you, they say things they probably didn’t want you to hear.  You can hear a lot with two ears. 

You can learn that an unpopular one eyed girl might actually be happier on the inside than a cheerleader or a quarterback.  Some of those two eyed people are pretty fucked up.  Even the popular ones.

The one eyed girl thought she had it all figured out.  She had a plan.  And she did a great job of executing the plan, up to a point.  She finished high school, got the scholarship, went to college, got accepted into veterinary school.  So far, so good.

But there was one thing she hadn’t counted on.  A wild card, an unexpected outcome, a twist of fate.  Because sometimes, shit happens.  Meeting the boy with one leg was not part of Cassie’s plan.

A LITTLE LATER ON

The animals are angry and confused.  The door to the bedroom had never been closed before.  The girl with one eye is also confused, not necessarily in a bad way.  She realizes she is going to have to make some changes to the plan.

REALLY BAD JOKE I HEARD 50 YEARS AGO THAT INSPIRED THIS STORY

The boy with the wood eye asks the girl with the wooden leg, “Would you like to dance?”  The girl replies enthusiastically, “Would I!”  The boy misinterprets, gets mad and starts chanting, “Wooden leg, wooden leg!”

I told you it was a bad joke.  But let me tell you the one about when Uncle Ted’s helicopter crashed…

And, completely coincidentally, I just realized the kid who told me that joke so long ago, ended up becoming a veterinarian.  He has two eyes.  Go figure.