Woodrow Brown stared down the tip of a needle as it went through his eye. There was a slight pop as it broke through the membrane, and he could feel the cold metal moving towards the back of his head. But any pain that he felt subsided quickly, and before too long, he couldn’t feel a thing on the whole left side of his head.
“Allllright, Mr. Brown,” Bill Jones said in a calm, even tone — a mocking impression of a doctor. “Just hold reeeal still.”
Bill Jones was not a doctor, and they were not in an operating room. Woodrow laid on an old white fold-out table in the middle of his garage and his eye was held open with strips of duct tape. The only legitimate things they had for this operation were a syringe full of lidocaine they bought from an unscrupulous doctor, a scalpel they bought for a few dollars on the internet, and the replacement eye.
Bill Jones flipped through a composition book with “Surgery Notes” handwritten on the cover, nodded to himself and brought the scalpel towards Woodrow’s face.
Carefully, he cut around the eye with a steady rhythm of short incisions. Warm blood trickled down Woodrow’s cheek. Bill Jones cut a circle into the eye, perfectly around the iris, and picked the severed lens up with a pair of tweezers and put it in a little stainless steel bowl that sat on a stool beside him, leaving the inside of the eye exposed to the open air. Then, he stuck the scalpel in the opening, cutting around the inside of Woodrow’s eye, loosening its contents so that he could pull them out with a pair of tweezers. It took a little bit of elbow grease, but the eye was soon nothing more than an empty white-and-red pocket. Woodrow felt something he couldn’t describe when he saw the insides of his own eyeball hanging off the end of the tweezers. There was a clear jelly-like substance surrounding the bits of eye that he was more familiar with, and it conjured images of an olive suspended in Jell-O. Bill Jones tossed it into the bowl and took the replacement eye out of a cooler that sat at his feet.
The eye was big — much bigger than Woodrow would’ve thought. He wasn’t sure how exactly it was going to fit into his eye-pouch, but Bill Jones assured him over and over that it would work out just fine.
“Might be some stretching, a little bit of tearing, but it’ll fit,” he said.
In addition to being much larger than normal, the eye was peculiar for a couple of other reasons: it was bright yellow; it had long, slitted pupils; and it used to be inside the head of a Wampus Cat before Woodrow and Bill took it for themselves.
Bill Jones squirted a bit of contact lens solution into the eye pocket to clear out the blood and other mess that had accumulated, and then inserted the eye of the Wampus. It fit snugly — a little too snugly — causing the white of Woodrow’s eye to push against his skull. After that, it was only a matter of stitching it all together, connecting the new eye to the optical nerve, and sewing the eye shut so it could heal. Bill Jones peeled the bloody latex gloves off of his hands and let out a deep sigh.
“Whelp, there ya go, Woody” Bill Jones said, clearly satisfied with his work. “You’ll have yourself a brand new Wampus Cat eye in a couple of weeks.”
Woodrow turned his head slowly and gave Bill Jones a thumbs up.
“Nice work, Dr. Jones. Never had any doubts. Now, when can we do the rest of them?” he said seconds before blacking out.
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Woodrow’s new Wampus Cat eye healed without any hiccups. He actually wore an eye patch on his old human eye because of how blurry and useless it felt in comparison to the ocular marvel on the right side of his head. It was disorienting to try to see out of both. He had been slightly farsighted since birth and needed reading glasses starting at the age of thirty or so, which is earlier than most, but now he could read a street sign a mile away just as clearly as he could see his hand in front of his face. The world had suddenly become bigger, more detailed, and more brilliantly colored. It reminded him of when he got his first pair of glasses as a kid and could see the individual leaves on the trees on the way home. The oversized leather recliner he spent most of his days on was now a mahogany mass of textures — waves, ripples, ridges, and lumps. He gingerly rubbed the arm as if to see if it was really the same chair, and it felt the same as it always had.
The enhanced eyesight wasn’t as wonderful when he looked in the mirror. Aside from the wrinkles and open pores that now stuck out to him, the eye itself did not look right sitting in his head. It bulged out slightly, giving him a permanent look of suspicious bewilderment, and the bright yellow color that looked so fierce on the Wampus Cat as it stalked through the woods just looked silly and sickly when paired with his rounded, human face. Still, he was satisfied with Bill Jones’s work, and couldn’t wait to put a second ill-fitting eyeball in his head.
“Woody, you know we gotta wait for a couple more weeks at least. I reckon those cats are still pretty pissed off at us. If we strolled into the woods right now looking for a second Wampus Cat eye, they’d tear us apart. Plus, we need to wait and see if your body is gonna reject that eye. It’s lookin’ good so far, but even human-to-human transplants will have rejection issues a lot of the time. I know you want to get this all done as quickly as possible, but it’s gonna take some time. You gotta trust the process.”
Woodrow sat in his recliner and talked to Bill Jones on the phone. Some documentary about the War of Two Gods hummed indistinctly on the TV.
“I’m just about sick and tired of wearing this damn eye patch,” Woodrow said. “I feel like a pirate.”
“I could cut that other eye out for you now if you really want me to. It wasn’t half as hard as I thought it was gonna be,” Bill Jones said.
“Nah, it’s fine. Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you. Just make sure I’m awake for target practice tomorrow. Haven’t had a chance to really test this eye out yet.”
“Sure thing. See ya soon.” The call ended.
With nobody to talk to, there was nothing to distract him from what was on the television. A ragged looking man with a neatly trimmed beard, crazy eyes, and tattoos covering him from head to toe, was being interviewed. Woodrow recognized him, of course — he was the Emperor, after all.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“Emperor Augustus.” A stiff-looking man with an even stiffer comb over spoke into a microphone. “When did you first know that the war had been won?”
“I didn’t, and it hasn’t,” Emperor Augustus snapped. “The country has been torn into two, Mickey’s still out there, and you call that a fucking victory? Dumbass.”
The stiff man looked like he was about to soil himself. He was paler than a week-old cadaver.
“S-sorry, Emperor Augustus. I didn’t mean any —”
“For the love of fucking Christ, stop calling me that! All of you!” Augustus shouted. The crew could be heard clamoring for places to hide off-screen. The interviewer sat where he was, not moving, not even breathing by the looks of it, while Augustus stared him down like a lion staring down a wounded squirrel. For a moment, all he did was stare with his wild eyes. The interviewer looked sure that the floor was going to open up and he’d be sucked straight down to Hell. Then Augustus closed his eyes and shook his head, and his expression transformed into something less animalistic, but more pained, frustrated.
“Just call me Gus, please,” he said. “I’m not an emperor. I’m a protector, protecting us all who oppose our great nation, protecting us all from that motherfucker in the west. Please don’t grovel at my feet. I’m not a god. I’m just a bum with a dream.” He flashed a yellowed smile that somehow made him look even more bitter, and looked directly into the camera. “A dream of uniting the United States of America once again. A dream of freeing the people of… Micktopia…” he spat the name out with disgust, “…from his reign of tyranny. A dream of returning this nation to its rightful place as the best and most powerful nation the world has ever seen.”
The camera crew all clapped and whistled off screen, and the shot faded to a title card that read From Bum to God: The Rise of God Emperor Augustus with a subtitle that said The God of the People. It went on to tell the inspiring tale of Augustus McCall, a former homeless man that climbed the ladder of government through sheer determination and ingenuity, and how, through his unfettered devotion to Jesus Christ, he was gifted the powers of a god himself. It was an old film at this point — Woodrow remembered watching it in elementary school — but it was a good one. It was truly the ultimate rags-to-riches story.
It was also a steaming crock of horseshit.
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Woodrow had just turned eighteen when his father called him into the dining room where his mother, Aunt Bea, Uncle Frank, Uncle Martin, and even his old Mee Maw were gathered and waiting for him. He hadn’t seen his Mee Maw outside of the retirement home in years, with her being ninety-one and barely able to move, and all of the grave looks on their faces worried Woodrow greatly.
“Son, I need to talk to you about something,” his dad said. “Sit down.” He let out a big sigh and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to be seeing the Emperor real soon. He asked for me specifically.”
Woodrow was confused. “That’s great, dad!” he said, and Aunt Bea burst into tears. Her turkey neck jiggled with each heaving sob.
“Son,” his dad repeated, “When someone gets called up like I did, they don’t come back.” His voice was even, controlled, like he was working hard to make sure not even a hint of weakness showed through. But Woodrow could see, hidden under the beard, that his lip quivered ever so slightly.
“I’m sorry.”
None of this made any sense to young Woodrow.
“Dad, what are you talking about? Is he sending you somewhere?”
“No, not exactly. He’s… going to kill me.”
Woodrow was stunned by the matter-of-fact way his dad said this, and it took a moment for him to form a response.
“Why… would he do something like that?” Woodrow finally said, struggling to pull each word out of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” his father replied. “He always acts like he doesn’t want to, yet he does it all the time. I saw him do it at least a dozen times in the two years I served after the War. I’m surprised it took him this long to call me up, if I’m being honest. I thought I would’ve been one of the first, with how much I saw. But he must’ve reckoned I’d never talk about it, and I didn’t — or he didn’t think anyone would believe me if I did.”
This was all starting to sound ridiculous, Woodrow thought. His dad had suffered from a couple of traumatic brain injuries while fighting in the War, and his mom said he hadn’t ever been the same since. This wasn’t the first time he’d told some crazy story about the Emporer doing this or that. His mom would always say to “Just ignore him, honey, he’s drunk,” and “Remember, your father is a great man. He just has some troubles.” But he wasn’t drunk this time around, and usually his entire extended family didn’t come over to hear these tall tales.
“Why would he want to kill you, or anyone else he didn’t have to?” Woodrow asked. “He’s a conduit of God!”
“He ain’t a conduit of shit!” his dad shouted, slamming his fist on the table. Uncle Martin, his dad’s older brother, put a firm hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
“I don’t know what he is, but he ain’t channeling God,” he said more quietly. “He’s closer to a devil, if anything. The things I saw that man do, Woody, you wouldn’t believe. Once, I saw him kill a thousand men in a minute, dissolving their skin with waves of black tar so big they blocked out the sun. The smell of their burning fleshing, the sounds of their screams — oh, it was horrible. And he didn’t care who he killed, either. If any one of us talked back to him, we’d get the tar, too, or worse. I saw him kill lieutenants, admirals, generals in his own army. One of them, the general, he pinched their windpipe with his thumb and pointer finger, and it just collapsed. The poor man choked to death at the Emperor’s feet, and he said that if anyone tried to help him, he’d do the same to them.
I hoped the senseless killing would stop when the War ended, but it didn’t. I had risen to the rank of general myself by then, and met with the Emperor often. It was clear something was constantly bothering him. One day, he came to the Pentagon and asked for me. He got me alone in the tiniest meeting room we had and asked me to bring him someone strong, the strongest man I knew of. When I asked why, he said it was classified, but he needed a fighter. Like a good soldier, I followed his orders, and brought my old friend Erik to see him. Erik was a legend among the fellow soldiers for carrying a longsword into battle and using it to kill twenty-five men. He was a big burly, mean-looking son of a bitch, but he was a gentle giant if you were on his good side. Gus said that Erik was perfect, and thanked us both. I never saw Erik again. Nobody did. After seeing what he did to people during the War, I knew exactly what he was doing — he was murdering them in the most messed up ways he could think up. A few days later, I filed for retirement.
It’s been almost a decade. I thought, hoped he’d just forgotten about me. He never seemed all that interested in us anyway. I had to speak to him ten times before he recognized me. But now he wants to meet with me, and there can only be one reason why.
I’m sorry, Woody, but I have to go. If I don’t, he might come for you all. Just promise me, son, that you’ll live a good life, and always do what you think is right, even when it’s hard.”
Woodrow would never forget how his father looked then. The room felt brighter, time felt slower, everything felt heightened from the significance of the moment. His dad’s face was like a painting hung up in his mind; the quivering lip under his reddish brown beard, the dark bags under his eyes, his thinning hair sticking up in different directions, and the hard, solemn look on his face while he said his finals words to his son were all carved into Woodrow’s mind forever.
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Woodrow sat in his leather armchair and clenched his fist looking at the smug, tattooed son of a bitch on the television, now clearer than ever thanks to his Wampus eye. He wasn’t sure if Emperor Augustus was a god or not, but he was going to find out.