Rip.

I gazed out the window of the red van in thought. Interrupting my thinking, I felt a finger poke my cheek.

“You had an eyelash on your cheek, see,” she explained to me once she noticed the weird look on my face I had given her. I glanced down to the finger she held towards me with an eyelash gently resting on it. “Blow the eyelash off,” she said.

“Why? “ I asked, confused.

“Because you get to make a wish when you blow an eyelash off your finger, just like what you do with a dandelion,” she spoke about it like I should have already known that, but she had an excited tone to her voice.

It took me a few seconds to think of a wish to make, the right wish. ‘I wish I could fly,’ I thought in my head as I finally rid her finger of my eyelash with a quick blow.


I sat on my bed, leaning my back against the pillow, with my face looking up to the ceiling while I thought about what my friend had told me that day. I wondered if the wish would come true or not; it would be so sensational to fly. It was a large wish on a small thing though, so the chances were low. But what if I had a ton of wishes and made the same wish each time? Then maybe my wish would come true. I would have to wish for more than just to fly though, because I’d have no wings. Fairies had wings, and I had always loved fairies; to be one would be nice.

I slowly raised my hand to my eye and swiped my finger across the tips of my eyelashes. Carefully, I gripped a patch in between my thumb and my pointer finger, and took a breath in. With a sudden strong movement, I ripped out the patch of eyelashes. My other hand was quick to cover my eye from the pain and put some pressure on it to lessen the pain. I turned to face the open window, brought the eyelash clump close to my face, and I closed my eyes. ‘I wish I was a fairy, I wish I was a fairy, I wish I was a fairy…,’ repeated several times in my head. My eyes began to open and I looked up to the sky, searching for the stars. I believed that if my eyelashes reached the stars then my wish would come true. So over and over, I ripped my eyelashes out until there were none left and I was immune to the pain; I was determined to have my wish come true.

My eyes felt naked come the next day at school; my eyelashes had before protected me from the stares of others into my green eyes. I never expected the questions I had received at lunch time though.

“What happened to your eyes? They have no eyelashes,” a younger girl I didn’t know pointed it out.

“I, uh, I ripped them out,” I managed to quietly stutter out.

“Why would you do that? Wouldn’t that hurt?” she pressed on with more questions that I didn’t want to answer.

“No,” was all that I replied.

Thankfully the bell had rung and I quickly escaped back to class, hoping that nobody else would ask. Nobody did. I was relieved to know that there were no more questions, I hated lying.

---

[Grade 5.]

Picture day came, months later, and as my mother curled my hair she finally noticed my lack of eyelashes and asked what happened to them.

“I don’t know. My eyes are itchy and I rub them a lot, so they probably all fell out,” I lied so casually, she believed me. God damn my lies.

I shouldn’t have said that; my mother instantly thought I must have had something wrong with my eyes. Many times I would convince her that I didn’t need to see a doctor, and that I didn’t need eye drops. How long would it take her to just get used to it?

By that time, in grade 5, my wishes had changed completely. I no longer wished to be a fairy; that wish only lasted me 3 days. I had gone through multiple wishes since then. For 5 days I wished to be an angel, imagining what it would be like to protect somebody while wearing a halo above my head and have white, fluffy wings protruding out of my elegant dress. And for 3 months I wished to be pretty, I wished so hard; my wishes had become more realistic with time, but were still a far off fantasy.

---
[2 years later, grade 7.]

My eyes staring at the board never noticed the girl sitting diagonally to me staring intensely, studying my looks. It caught me completely by surprise when she blurted out “why don’t you have any eyelashes?”

“Uh, -” she cut me off before I even had the chance to speak more than an “uhm.”

“Did your eyelash curler rip them out? Mine’s done that to me before when I first starting using it. It hurts, doesn’t it? Once you learn to use it better, you won’t have that problem anymore,” she continued to ramble on, and I just gave a small nod, tuning out her annoying voice.

I no longer wished for anything when I blew away my eyelashes at that age, I only pulled them out as a habit, a bad habit.

---

[Grade 9, quitting the habit.]

I ripped them out when I was angry, frustrated, stressed, upset, or nervous because it felt good. I wanted my long eyelashes back again, I longed to feel them against my pillow when I blinked, and I wished to swipe my finger across them once again. Two months had been the longest I could ever resist the temptation. Each time they grew to a certain length, I gave in and relieved myself from the urge.

---

Grade 11 now and I struggle still to grow them out to their full length. But I’m determined to do it.