Eyeball Kid takes it out, rolls it in his palm and gives it a wipe. Tennis ball optic, on thin wiry strings. But it won't go back in. It doesn't fit. How did it ever fit? It's huge. Maybe the air made it swell. The black head hole is certainly not large enough. Little Urchin Sister peers in. What colour would it be, the brain? Grey he tells her, then says no, it's a myth, it should be pink. She tells him she can't see any colour. Just black. That's queer, he thinks. He tries one more time to get it back in his head and gives up, opting instead for the breast pocket of soft cotton shirt. It fits! The wires waver, the connection between head and heart stretched taut.
Shattered pieces of mother lie on the frozen ice of the kitchen floor. House clouds sit low and bulbous, crushing necks and snapping spines. Bare bulbs and cobwebs in a cold concrete shell, a shelf-life shame. In the corner, Eyeball Kid and Little Urchin Sister cower, they hear the bugs in the next room. Some are crab-like, orange and flesh-coloured. Others are dark brown and hairy. They all try to get in under the door but once they make it they keep slipping on the ice, sliding back out.
Eyeball Kid turns and overdoes it on the ice, sending him around like a spinning top. Little Urchin Sister pokes him with a bony finger and he comes to a dizzy stop. The other side of the room is expansive, to the west is a world of glassy mountains and frozen landscapes. The kitchen floor of ice is an off-shoot of a huge glacier. Eyeball Kid and Sister head out west as the house clouds hit the floor and billow all about.
Stop, Sister says, half way across the gigantic sheet of ice. Look, Sister says. Underneath white ice, the grey figures of crocodiles or alligators lie. Eyeball kid can't remember the difference. Asleep or frozen dead, nobody knows, but their eyes reflect the shifting light. They must be waiting for it to melt, Sister says. Eyeball Kid steps in slush and finds sopping feet. Better run, so they run. White sky, white land, white air. Nothing but white, the two children run, feeling the melt behind them, hearing snapping jaws. Little balls of colour squirm on the horizon. Eyeball kid grabs Sister's hand and heads for the colour. His loose eye is out of his pocket and banging off his chest and arm and sometimes his head. For a moment he worries that the wires will break and he will lose it and never get it back into his head. But it doesn't break.
With a waterfall in their wake, they are on dry land. It's bouncy and springy, the soil, like it's made of rubber. Eyeball Kid looks at the balls of colour, and sees that they are gigantic sombreros rotating on a ferris wheel. It's spinning so fast that the colours are mixing into one kaleidoscopic swirl.
A singing voice calls out.
'My baby done left me, my baby wouldn't stay, she took all the money, my baby's gone away.'
Eyeball kid spies an extravagantly dressed man. His name is Pachuco, and he got the blues. Empty sky and ocean depths, Pachuco got the blues. Azure and cobalt, navy and aqua he done got them all. Grin and bear sombrero, Pachuco got the blues.
'I was king of summertime, he says. I was lord of music and laughter and joy. But then my baby done left me.'
Eyeball Kid asks about baby. Pachuco says he got all the blues, except baby blue. She done left him. Then he jumps down a well, and Little Urchin Sister runs over and peers in. Eyeball kid calls to her. Can you see it? Can you see Pachuco's Cadaver? She tells him she can't see any colour. Just black.
Eyeball Kid and his Little Urchin Sister go inside one of the nearby mushroom-shaped huts. They go past the cobwebs and head for the cold concrete corner. The floor turns to ice in front of them. Cowering, they wait for the bugs to come, and they can still hear Pachuco singing his song from the underworld. He done got the blues.
