Kaleidoscope Eyes

“This thing is frigging useless!” Kevin exclaimed, twisting and turning it in an attempt to make it work. “You were bloody ripped off!”

“Stop your swearing, Kevin!” ordered his father. “And don’t be silly. It worked perfectly well when we were in the shop. If it doesn’t work now, you must have done something to it.”

"I didn’t do a bloody thing to it,” Kevin retorted. “That weird old man just saw you coming and took his chance. He got you good. What a crappy old place with crappy old stuff! It freaked me out!”

“Now Kevin," said his mother. “He was a nice old man, even if he was a bit strange. I don’t know why you had to speak to him the way you did. I was very embarrassed.”

“Why’d you buy this dumb thing instead of that telescope I wanted anyway?"

Mr and Mrs Kelly both sighed. They had taken their nine-year-old son out for a shopping trip, intending to purchase new school shoes for the coming year. They had been sidetracked up an unknown and rather unusual street by road works, and had come across a quaint old curiosity shop there. It’s just like the ones they had in the old days, thought Mr Kelly, who was a bit of a history buff and loved legends and stories of the olden times. There was no way that even Kevin’s whingeing would keep his father from going to check out this amazing shop.

Inside, they had found all sorts of interesting things – at least Mr and Mrs Kelly thought they were interesting; the only thing Kevin was interested in was an old brass telescope. While his parents looked around at the crappy stuff like hairbrushes and jugs, dolls and jewellery, Kevin picked up the telescope. It looked like it might be a cool thing to have. He’d be able to use it to spy on his creepy neighbour, or check out the unscreened windows of a nearby apartment block. He was about to put the cool metal end-piece to his eye, when a funny old geezer with long white hair and beard gently lifted it from his chubby hands.

“I’m sorry,” said the old guy, “but this instrument is not for you. It is reserved for someone else.”

“Oh come on! My Dad will give you whatever you want for this old spyglass when he knows I want it.”

“No. Not possible, I’m afraid.”

“Then why do you have it in the shop if we can’t buy it? That’s stupid. You’re a stupid old fart!”

When they heard Kevin’s raised voice, Mr and Mrs Kelly had come across from where they were examining a kaleidoscope. They apologised to the old man, and rather ineffectually told Kevin he was not to speak like that. As if to make a peace offering, they had purchased the kaleidoscope that Mr Kelly was still holding in his hand, and quickly left the shop. It was this kaleidoscope that Kevin was now impatiently shaking and twisting, in an endeavour to make it work.

When Kevin threw it down in disgust, his mother picked it up. “Be careful Kevin,” she said. “This is a lovely thing, with beautiful patterns when you turn the end.”

She put the tube to her eye and rotated it. “ I don’t know what you want it to do,” she said, “but it works fine for me.”

“Is that all it’s supposed to do!” Kevin exclaimed. “What’s the use of that? My Nintendo is heaps better than that old thing!”

“Well,” said his father, “if you don’t want it, I’ll keep it in my study. It will be nice to look at it and see some beauty for a change.”

“No, I’ll keep it in my room.” Kevin backed down sullenly. It might be a stupid old kid’s toy, but it was his and his father wasn’t going to have it in his room.

“All right dear,” said his mother. “I know you’ll love it. I had one when I was little and I thought it was terrific.”

Kevin glowered at his mother, snatched the kaleidoscope from her hand and marched out of the living room into his bedroom. He put the toy onto the shelf next to his bed and picked up his electronic game.

“Stupid toy!” he muttered.

A few minutes later, he looked up at the kaleidoscope. The cheerful patterns on the outside of the tube somehow attracted him. He put down his game and reached across to pick it up. He stared at it. The bright patterns on the outside were disjointed sections of colour. They appeared meaningless, but Kevin thought he could see patterns there. The tube itself was made from tin; one end of it had an eyepiece, and the other could be turned, to rotate the coloured pieces of glass against an opaque end panel. He placed the eyepiece to his eye.

“I’ll pretend it’s a telescope,” Kevin said to himself. “That’s what I should have had. Stupid old man! Now, what can I see?”

He turned the end-piece and looked at the resulting pattern. He turned it again, and the pattern changed. This was pretty cool actually. Every little movement changed the pattern in the kaleidoscope. The colours were vibrant, and they moved in a rhythmical way, in symmetrical patterns that seemed to grow out from the centre. Kevin was losing his scepticism and becoming fascinated with the toy. He held it so that the far end was pointed to the window. The colour intensity changed. He turned back to face the wall; it changed again. He turned on the light and pointed it that way. Different again. Wow! This was great!

When his mother called him an hour later to come for dinner, Kevin ignored her. When his father came a few minutes after, he ignored him too. They decided that it was all right for Kevin to miss out on a meal for now. He could eat later. Meanwhile, his parents were pleased that their son had found something to interest him and was not getting into strife around the neighbourhood as he usually did.

Kevin put down the kaleidoscope for a few minutes that night when he had to get changed for bed, though he wouldn’t have a shower.

“You can have one in the morning,” smiled his mother. “Now have a good night.”

Kevin took his kaleidoscope to bed with him. He left the bedroom light on so he could see the changing patterns in the tube. When his father came and turned off his light before going to bed himself, Kevin waited until he had gone. Then he got up, closed his bedroom door, and turned the light back on. All night long he lay on his bed, turning and turning the end of the kaleidoscope, fascinated – no, mesmerised by the changing patterns.

Next morning, when his mother went to see why he wasn’t up and eating his breakfast, she found him with his eye still glued to the end of the metal tube, holding it with one hand and turning the end with the other.

“Come on, Kevin. Breakfast’s ready. Aren’t you hungry?”

Kevin merely grunted.

“You haven’t been looking at that thing all night have you?” She laughed a little uncertainly. Kevin was a big eater who never missed a meal. Now, he preferred to miss a second meal rather than put down the kaleidoscope. That was a worry.

“Come on,” she insisted. “Put that down for now and have your breakfast. You can have it again later.”

“Go away!” Kevin snarled. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” He turned to face the window, keeping the toy to his eye.

Mrs Kelly went to get her husband. When he came, he got the same response from their son.

Mrs Kelly was very worried. She couldn’t work out what was happening. She was more worried when Kevin did not go to his computer all day. He wouldn’t come to eat or wash, and barely made it to the toilet a couple of times.

Mr Kelly returned from work that evening and heard what his wife had to tell him.

“Right! That’s it! I’m taking that thing away from him.”

He walked into Kevin’s bedroom and was shocked at what he saw. His chubby son had already lost weight. He was lying on the bed with the kaleidoscope to one eye; one finger of his right hand slowly turned the end. The other eye looked blank. His face had become pale and drawn.

A phrase ran through Mr Kelly’s mind and then wouldn’t go away: “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes…”, from the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”. What had happened to him? Oh, why had they bought the toy at that strange shop?

“Give me the kaleidoscope Kevin,” he said quietly. Kevin did not respond. Mr Kelly took hold of the toy and gently tried to pull it from Kevin’s hand. He couldn’t move it. Kevin’s hand gripped the tube like a vice, though he did not move. When his father pulled harder, Kevin’s whole body moved, but his hand did not release its grip on the kaleidoscope.

Mr Kelly let go. He turned and walked to the telephone in the lounge room. His call to the local doctor resulted in an ambulance being sent to pick up the young boy. The ambulance attendants could not take the tube out of Kevin’s hand any more than his father had been able to.

Kevin is in an institution now, being fed by drip. The psychiatrists say he has gone to some place deep inside. They say that can happen when a person thinks the whole world revolves around himself. They think maybe something in his makeup could not cope with coming back into the world again after he had seen what was in there.

No one can remove the kaleidoscope from Kevin’s hand, even though he can no longer put it up to look through it. His eyes are mostly blank and lifeless, but, every now and then, a spark of colour will appear and flash, then disappear again.

“Kaleidoscope eyes,” his father calls them.