New Fiction: They'll be enslaving hands next!

We've heard about people selling their kidneys for money but in our latest story – The Tyranny of Enslaved Eyes – Theresa J. Barker wonders what it would be like if we could our sight? 

Theresa J. Barker says she always longed to live in other worlds, which she accomplishes through her writing - Theresa writes science fiction. You can follow her on her website at http://www.theresabarker.com plus
http://www.theresabarkerlabnotes.com and on Twitter:  @theresajbarker


The Tyranny of Enslaved Eyes
by Theresa J. Barker

These eyes have never been enslaved. I still look at what I want to look at and see what I want to see. And I’m keeping it that way.  

My brother Roger sold his eyes to the Vandals to raise some quick cash last year - he owed a lot to a couple of those instant-loan places - and now they see through his eyes. He can still see just like everyone else, but he has to watch what they tell him to.  That’s how they get their thrills through his eyes.

He didn't think it would be so bad, at least, that's what he told me. But I knew better. Once you sell your eyes you can never be free.

The Vandals give the best rate for eyes. Of course you can guess why. There are other sight buyers who want eyes to view beauty, museums and places like that. But they don't pay so well, and Roger needed as much money as he could get his hands on.

There are places that will buy eyes for a limited-time contract, and you get the rights back to your eyes after the contract expires. But they don't pay that well either, unless you get into the Filth dealers. Pedophiles, torture, that kind of crap always pays the best. Duh.

They tried robot eyes for a while. Everyone thought that would dilute the market for eyes. But robot eyes only transmit what they're watching, not the emotions behind it. So the hyper-amplified emotions everyone wants - wonder and awe, or disgust and titillation, as the case may be - can only be had through enslaved eyes.

The government tried to ban eye-selling. For once the Conservative Right and the Liberal Left got together on it. The Right pulled out the family values bit while the Left extolled the need to prevent exploitation of the poor and weak. But in the end the Right went back under the thumb of Big Business, and the Left had to be content with strict regulation of the market.

So now anyone can sell their eyes. The gangs are especially embedded in the business. Roger's eyes belong to the Vandals.  I think he's slowly going insane. Last week at Mom's for Sunday dinner he didn't say a word. All sunk into himself, he is. Some of my other brothers talked about getting a lawyer involved, but they know it's a long shot. You have to prove fraud or malicious intent, and Roger signed all the paperwork fair and square. So we just have to sit by and watch him slide away into his own private black void.

My mom says maybe this is better, that he’s better off now than before he sold his eyes, but I hate it when she says that.  
Of course it caught us all by surprise when he started showing signs of schizophrenia just a couple of years ago, and it was terrible when he told us the meds didn’t seem to help. I know Mom felt guilty when Roger was diagnosed, like it was her fault, like it was from her bloodline or something.  But it makes me think about the different kinds of hell the mind takes us into. There is the hell Roger had before with his mental illness, and the hell he has now, with enslaved eyes. And then there is the hell we have, sitting by and watching what's happening to Roger.

There is talk about enslaving hands next. I hear talk that the Vandals can't wait.