She looked at him with those strange Christina Ricci type eyes she had, and she probably thought he wanted to get all Sleepy-Hollowy with her.  She'd never get it - he didn't want her.  He just liked her eyes.  He could get lost in them. As far as....contact?  Forget it.  He'd done the Rasputin thing for too many years now to change. He'd stay in his onion dome and enjoy the stench.  He felt like asking if he could just have her eyes...you know, to display in his livingroom, in a dome inside his own. He closed his eyes and brushed the matter of fact thought away.

She was a nightwatchman for this department store....he'd seen her in the front window, straightening a mannikin and for a time he just stood and stared at her, and then realized he'd been staring only at the mannikin..for like an hour and a half.  He only got to meet her when she came out of the front door and demanded to know what he was looking at.  He was gonna say "you" ... but that was a lie, wasn't it, because she wasn't there now, she was here, but the mannikin didn't have the eyes he saw but she did, and he was thinking that she was still there.  strange.  Her eyes hovered about a half a foot in front of her face....he went to reach for them and she pulled out her nightstick.  He thought how aptly named a "nightstick" was when he first saw stars, then nothing but pitch black.

He woke later and saw her.  He was in her apartment, a much nicer place than his onion dome, and definitely better smelling. She sat in front of him. doodling.  He looked closer and she was drawing eyes.  Hers. Big. Again eye shaped, and they were all in a row.  He could see her in every one.   Why had she clubbed him?  At least she hadn't snubbed him. Again she looked at him with those eyes.   Soulful...Big.  Saucers that one could eat a full meal off of, and get stared at while doing so.  Love them eyes.  Obviously she liked her eyes too or she wouldn't be drawing them.  The eyes had it...so had he - he lapsed into unconsciousness again. She crumpled up the paper and ate it.

Next time he woke up, he was still there, but she had relieved him of his monk's habit and redressed him in some rather too large jeans and a sloppy sweatshirt. And cut his hair.  Wow.  First time his hair'd been cut. well, since he went mad.  Or was he mad? Was it really an issue to go into just now when all the world revolved around eyes?
Hers looked at him, and his at hers.  They were good together. Maybe there was an eye in team.  She walked over to him, and it was only then he noticed she was shoeless.  Nice white socks on.  With smiley faces on them. Hmmm...where was all this going?  It was a lot easier back in Russia. No hidden meanings there, boy....and nobody really bothered him.  How had he gotten all the way away from there and into this place?  He was dressed in beatnik garb, and it was strangely comforting, but now he had the overwhelming urge to spout bad poetry. "Eye can't do it" he creyed.

She was now watching tv, and he rose, walked over, and tried not to be thorny towards her. He sat down on a small beige sofa.  Her eyes were watching tv but the rest of her wasn't the least bit interested.  The show was something about an opthamologist with a sleep disorder who ran a part time hot dog stand.  It was called "Eye dream of weenies". He was dog-tired.  Time to close his I's and get some Z's.

She looked at him as he slept.  Suddenly she decided that she was tired too, and lay down on the floor by the sofa.  The room had been brightly lit, but as soon as she fell asleep, the lights went out.  She closed her eyes and extinguished the view.  He now only existed in her head.  Had he ever been anywhere else?  Who was ever going to know? If she opened her eyes again, would he still be there?  She didn't know.  It was not a question she could currently answer.  She listened to the snoring in her head that she assumed was his, but seemed to come from her body. "Oh Rasputin, I miss you" she sobbed.   He snored on in her head, behind her eyes.  Someone was going to come and take these visions from her one day.

She woke and heard his snore. She opened her eyes and he wasn't there. She closed her eyes and he was.  She didn't like this one bit.  So she removed her eyes and stumbled to the kitchen, breaking them into an iron skillet.  Rasputin appeared in a flash with a new pair of eyes for her, equally as Ricci-like, but he was covered in egg white.  "It's about time!" he roared and she stumbled back, then ran to him and they embraced clumsily in the kitchen while her old eyes were cooking sunny side up.  He was finally out of her head and there in her arms, and she'd gotten a new pair of eyes out of the bargain.  It was something she hadn't foreseen... she never saw it coming.