Written By: Mikiko Miyakawa
One day at the school reception, I asked the reception lady to give me an I-20. She said”Ok, let me find your name”
“My name is Mikiko.”
She smiled and looked down on the computer screen. She touched her hair and her nape revealed. There I saw an eye smiling to me. She turned to me and said “I found your name and you’ll be able to get your I-20 tomorrow.”
I was so surprising by what I saw that I couldn’t even say a word. I just nodded and rushed to my classroom. My classmate Tomoko saw me and said” What’s wrong? You look pale.”
“You know the new reception girl. She… she has an eye, a third eye on her neck.”
Tomoko frowned. “You idiot.”
After school, I went back to my place and took a shower. When I was washing my neck, I sensed something like a tumor was on my nape. I scraped it on the sponge, and then I saw the wall behind me! (without looking back!) The back view was located under the view I could see in front of me.
I screamed and went back to my room to look into the mirror. There was an eye that looked terrified. I couldn’t sleep even one minute that night.
The next day, I went to school and told Tomoko to come to the lady’s room.
“Look at this” I moved my long hair in order to show her my eye.
Tomoko was speechless for a moment. Finally, she said “It may be contagious.”
The next day, Tomoko texted me:”I got the third eye too.”
I whispered,”THat’s too bad” to myself. But I retrieved my composure and I googled “one eye on the nape”. I got several results. Some articles and blogs said that the eye would disappear like a tumor if you show it to someone. These articles looked suspicious to me because there were no photos of the third eye. Also, I showed my third eye to Tomoko, and yet it was still there.
“Something is missing. What is the thing I didn’t do that the receptionist did to me?” I asked myself. I tried to remember the receptionist’s behavior.
“Oh, I remember! She was smiling. Even her third eye was smiling at me.”
I texted Tomoko:”Meet me at school after work this evening”
As soon as I saw Tomoko, I asked her”Look at my eye.” I did my best to smile.
The next day when I woke up, my third eye had disappeared. I texted Tomoko to explain how to remove the third eye.
Next week, Tomoko didn’t look happy. I asked her, “Did you show your eye to anyone?”
“No, I don’t want to make anyone feel awful”.
“I understand. You’re so sweet. But, maybe you know, you would teach the person how to get lid of the eye afterward. So you don’t have to worry.”
Tomoko reluctantly said,” Ok, if you insist. I could show it to Nate.”
Judging from her awkward attitude, I suspected that Tomoko liked Nate. But I pretended not to notice anything and replied.
“You’re right. He’s our teacher so he will understand.”
Then I heard Tomoko did her task. But after that, Tomoko and I always found Nate wearing his scarf even in a very hot classroom. Now we believe that he is a nice person. And/or I assume Nate likes Tomoko as well.