Rollin, Rollin, Rollin

I’m in an airport, due to board a flight to the isle-of-fuck-knows-where. Or at least, I was. I had good intentions. I always do. They just never survive the terminal. There’s a commotion at customs. A woman is having what appears to be a full-blown existential breakdown in public, which feels rude, but also wildly entertaining. She’s clearly unravelling — not panicked, just unhinged — gobbing off at two bodyguards who look like they’ve been hollowed out and refilled with patience. “Do you know who I am?” she shrieks, dramatically flicking her hair back as though giving them a visual hint. They stare back, blank as security footage. I stare too. Nope. No idea. What a diva, I think, already emotionally boarding another flight. Then I notice her eyes. They’re enormous. Protruding. Wrong. They bulge as if something behind them is pushing — leaning — actively negotiating an exit. She rubs the bridge of her nose, too hard and — Pop. “Oops,” she says lightly, as if she’s dropped a contact lens. One eyeball ejects itself from her skull, hits the polished floor with a wet thud, and immediately begins to roll. Not tumble. Roll. With intent. With urgency. With somewhere better to be. It skims past boots and wheels, ducks under a pram, ricochets off a discarded passport, and I’m chasing it before I’ve even decided to. Of course I am. I chase things. I always have. “Sorry—sorry—excuse me—sorry,” I gasp, hurdling over abandoned luggage. The eyeball darts beneath a row of metal seats. I dive. Miss it. It slips between my fingers like it’s mocking me. Like it’s enjoying the cat-and-mouse. A child tries to kick it. It veers. A woman screams when it bumps her ankle. Someone slips in a puddle of something unidentifiable. The airport continues functioning, unfazed, as if rogue eyeballs fall well within the policy. The eyeball finally settles at the feet of an elderly man calmly reading a newspaper, legs crossed, utterly unbothered. “Excuse me,” I say, breathless, crouching. “Can I just… retrieve that?” He peers down. The eyeball stares up at him, unblinking, glossy, alive. He shrugs. “Go ahead, love.” I pick it up. It’s heavier than I expect. Warm. Slick. The texture makes my stomach turn — firm but pliable, like it could move if it wanted to. I’ve never held an eyeball before. This is not how I imagined it would feel, sitting obediently in my palm, watching me. The woman barrels towards me, panting. “You stole my eyeball!” Before I can apologise — or throw it away — she snatches it from my hand and shoves it back into her head with a wet, efficient squelch. She blinks. Perfect fit. No blood. No gratitude. Ungrateful swine. Blink. She’s now wearing a yellow dress. Identical to the three elderly women beside her. They form a quartet, swaying stiffly like funeral wreaths in a mournful breeze. She dances enthusiastically. They do not. Their smiles are tight. Their feet inch away from her, as if they’re hoping she’ll just… roll off somewhere else. She doesn’t. She keeps on dancing, utterly present, lost in her own blissful moment. The scene rolls away, smooth and unstoppable — like momentum pretending to be choice, like the eyeball escaping all over again. I’m suddenly frisky. This almost never happens. Since my mid-thirties, my libido has been in long-term hibernation, buried under a pile of responsibility and fatigue. But something has stirred the horndog within. It stretches. It cracks its knuckles. It lubes itself into action. How the tables have turned. It’s usually Mat who is pawing at me like a dog that wants strokes, not the other way around. His eyes widen like he’s just discovered a new limb. I straddle that limb, my mind already plotting how quickly this scene might end. And then the bloody cat jumps onto the bed and lands squarely between us. “Monkey,” I sigh automatically — but soon realise this thing is not my cat. This creature looks like it’s crawled straight out of a bin behind hell’s back gate. Missing teeth. Breath like rotten corpses. Eyes scorching straight through us. It sits. Watches. Judges. “I’m sorry,” I tell Mat. “I can’t concentrate with that… thing…staring.” Mat sighs the sigh of a man who has heard “maybe tomorrow” one too many times. He mutters something vicious under his breath and rolls over, turning his back on both of us. The scene rolls with him. I’m in an antique store. A treasure trove of musty relics from yesteryear. I’m looking for a rug, which makes no sense because our house is already buried beneath them — layer upon layer, hiding a multitude of sins. I find the perfect one. I unroll it, admiring it for a fleeting second before realising it’s far too big. No problemo. I pull out industrial-strength scissors — because apparently this is a normal thing I do — and start cutting. The sound is violent. Fibres tear. The rug does not go quietly. I feel disturbingly calm. At the counter, I present the mutilated rug. “Half price?” The shop owner looks at me like I’ve just spoiled the ending of his favourite book. “Madam,” he says carefully, “you can’t cut a rug in half and expect to pay half.” “Oh,” I say quietly. “I’ll leave it then.” The scene rolls away like a rug desperate for freedom. I’m on a balcony now, rolling a cigarette with hands that don’t know how. I don’t smoke. Even the cigarette looks ashamed to be associated with me. I light it anyway. Smoke floods my lungs like warmth that bleeds. “Jesus wept,” I cough. An Indian man is sitting beside me on a fold-out chair that wasn’t there a moment ago. He’s observing my apartment with unsettling interest, jotting notes. “How secure are the locks?” “Do you close the windows at night?” “Can you just walk me through the exact layout of the premises?” I answer vaguely, distracted by the fact I’ve burned neat little holes through my white leggings. They’re ruined now. Scarred for life. Probably for the best. White leggings should be a crime, along with crocs, adult dungarees and socks with sandals. “You shouldn’t be doing that,” he says. “The smoking?” I gesture. He shakes his head. “You make sure you sleep with one eye open.” Then he stands and walks away, dissolving into a thin cloud of smoke. I laugh, but it sounds distant. The balcony falls silent. I cough again — — and something gives. There’s pressure. A wet tearing sensation behind my eye, like glue peeling from meat. I feel it detach. Slide. Drop. My eyeball lands in my hand. Not gently. It’s slick with heat, veins twitching faintly, optic nerve dangling like something unfinished. It stares at me — accusing, exhausted, painfully aware. I can feel the hollow socket pulsing in my skull, open to the cold air. And in that moment — holding my own sight, finally forced to stop — I understand. How I roll through moments like loose objects I'm meant to return but never quite do. How I treat scenes as something to pass through, not stay inside. How I’m always leaning forward, already gone, already late for the next version of myself. I rush what’s here. I chase what’s next. I bargain with time, as if speed might save me. The present becomes a terminal. A waiting room. Somewhere to store my baggage. I don’t stay. I don’t linger long enough to feel it. I don’t see. I just keep rolling — out of today, past myself, into tomorrow.