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‘It’s a game-changer, that’s for sure. Science is changing the way we view things. Physically altering our view. Tadpoles. Blind tadpoles with eyes transplanted into their tails. There’s this miracle drug that allows the eyes to grow into their nervous systems…’ The man’s eyes are full-moon-wide, his hands gyrating helicopter blades of excitement. ‘Does that mean they would swim backwards?’ The woman is ponderous and slow from her fourth gin and tonic. The syllables fall out of her mouth—dense and clunky—like the ice cubes bashing around dodgem-car-style in her glass. ‘If you were a tadpole with transplanted eyes…’ He stops. Sighs. ‘You know what I mean,’ he continues. ‘If you were blind and had the option of getting yourself some new eyes… where would you put them? You couldn’t have them on your feet. Too much danger of a shopping trolley running over them. That could be messy. You couldn’t have them on your coccyx. Because your arse would crush them. You really wouldn’t want them on your hands. Think of all of the things you wouldn’t want to get an up-close-and-personal visual of, if your eyes were on your hands. No, that’s me stumped. How about you?’ The woman drains her gin and tonic, fingers the slice of lemon before putting it to her lips and seducing the bitter moisture out. The man’s gaze is drawn to a few droplets that cascade onto her chest. ‘I’d have them on my tits,’ replies the woman. ‘I’m pretty sure it would improve a direct line of eye contact with a lot of men.’ And then the man wishes he has no eyes. Wishes he were a tadpole. Wishes he didn’t all of a sudden feel so very much like a frog. (This story was first published in Issue 11.) JANE ROBERTS’ fiction has featured in a variety of anthologies and journals including: Litro, Bare Fiction Magazine, The Lonely Crowd, Wales Arts Review, LossLit Magazine, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, NFFD Anthologies, and Unthology 9. She has been a participant in the Writing West Midlands’ Room 204 Writer Development Programme 2017/18, shortlisted for Bridport and Fish Prizes, longlisted for a Saboteur Award for Best Anthology as part of Literary Salmon, and won Bloomsbury Writers' and Artists' Flash Fiction 2013. You can follow her on Twitter @JaneEHRoberts or visit her website at janeehroberts.wordpress.com
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