Eye

I came to Krasnoyarsk from a village and rented an apartment. I was very lucky – I was only expecting a small apartment, but instead got a fully furnished one-bedroom apartment. As a newcomer, it was crucial for me to get a foothold and devote all my energy to work, so for the first few weeks, I didn't notice anything. I attributed my nervousness to fatigue, and the constant feeling of being watched at my back to the fear of missing something at my new job. Then the feeling intensified and became more localized – I felt the gaze most strongly when I was sitting or lying on the ottoman. The feeling was present in other corners of the room, too, but not as strong. It was no longer present in the kitchen.

Slowly, it became impossible to sleep. I would wake up as if frozen, wrap my head in a blanket, and suffer nightmares until the morning. I still blamed everything on work. But one night, after a very difficult day, I didn't fully wake up. Half asleep, I slid down to the floor with the blanket, crawled to the other wall, and there, on the floor, in the draft, slept wonderfully until morning.

The next day, I had to admit that I couldn't sleep because of the wall where the foot of my daybed was. There was a rather pleasant painting hanging on it, which I didn't bother taking down after moving in because it suited the room well. It was under it that I discovered the eye.

It was painted on the wallpaper. Disgusting, vile, black, with no glint in the pupil, staring straight at me, no matter what angle you stood at. Depicted in anatomical detail, yet you couldn't tell whether it was the right one or the left.

As I peeled off the wallpaper, I didn't even think about how I would explain this to the landlady. I tried not to look at it while I was doing it. And I couldn't even think about where it came from, or how I sensed it through the painting.

A week later, the closet started to bother me—it became uncomfortable to undress in front of its doors, as if someone were looking at me, and that "look" also reached the ottoman.

The wallpaper behind the closet turned out to be different—it hadn't been moved during the last renovation. An eye was peeking out from under the wallpaper.

I have no one in this city, no one, otherwise I would never have done this alone. I tore off the wallpaper, feeling disgust, as if I were touching something dead and vile. The eye was on the concrete wall. I scraped it off with a kitchen knife, crying with fear—it stared at me until the very last moment. I painted the wall several layers.

Three days later, dragging myself home from work, more tired than ever, I realized I couldn't lie down—it was staring at me from under the ottoman. From below. I didn't move it, packed my things, and went to the hotel.

Now I'm in the room I rented in the dorm. The eye stares unabashedly from the wall. I haven't slept for two nights; I don't know how much longer I can stand it.