Eye Maggot

by Andrea DeAngelis

I don’t doom scroll, I hope scroll. I’m searching for pockets of resistance. I’ve explained this to my mental health companion, but it doesn’t get the distinction. The companion needs specifics. Data. Who’ve I’ve found and where. And incidentally how these blips of hope make me feel. Hopeful, I shrugged. But it doesn’t understand that elusive feeling. It is still learning, still mimicking, but aren’t we all? My companion is so close, tech worn on my neck, choking.

It’s all scrolling, my companion tells me. Scrolling is a public good, provides employment, enjoyment and ease. Why differentiate? The issue isn’t scrolling but my reaction to it. What makes me different and how can I fix that.

I try not to look, I really do. But the poison is within me now. I have been enlisted to bear witness and remember when no one else does. I need to keep score. I am always connected. A forced update, an upgrade from the glasses to the implant which is as small and wriggly as a maggot. The corporation decided it was mandatory. Everyone was doing it. They want to know what you’re doing even if you don’t know. They anticipate what I want to see and what I don’t and churn out mashups of the two all day. It learns from me, and I get paid for access to my brain. Five roommates aren’t so bad. Better than ten. The free noise-canceling headphones and staggered schedules help.

I can watch the maggot on an internal app, Maggot Me, I was prescribed. It is supposed to be therapeutic. But it isn’t soothing to see what I feel. Observing it drift behind my eye’s vitreous body, exploring my vision, maybe even warping it with its hollow rat tail, makes me queasy. Upon closer look as I zoom in, the maggot isn’t hairless but its fine threadlike strands quiver like it was tasting me. Its faceless face, those dark spots aren’t eyes but breathing holes, it needs my eyes to see. Its mouth-hooks nibble and slowly gorge on my predetermined appetites. Blind, sharpening my vision as it desiccates me. These maggots never pupate or mature. They revolve in ravenous stasis.

Watching the destruction of myself, reminds me of time lapse videos depicting the decay of carrion. But the body of a live animal can also be infected by maggots, laying their eggs to burst open and grow inside the host while feeding off its tissue. Endless parasitism.

The eye maggot keeps you looking even if you don’t want to. All the social streams and virtual cesspools. That’s ok, another decision made on your behalf. You do sleep better though. The metrics don’t lie. You’re entertained so you don’t lie there worrying. Let the maggot worry for you. Tech wants to think your thoughts before you do. They could be useful; they could be used. They want the eye maggot to be the only wearable tech you wear but really it wears you.

The creators named it The Naiad as if it was a beautiful deity. That name didn’t stick. Eye maggot did. Despite the popular customizations in neon and floral colors, the larvae are not beautiful. Eye contact has grown difficult to maintain. I may occasionally stare into someone’s eyes, if I’m forced to, only to see the enviable tech within. Luckily that antiquated custom was already in decline. Obviously, we don’t need it. I know I don’t. I like being unseen. You never know what someone is capable of, best to disengage. It’s safer that way.

I’ve gotten so used to seeing the graceful grub swim and swirl in others’ eyes, it’s no longer weird except mine. I can’t shake my discomfort despite all my mandatory therapy. Feeling it glide behind the retina unnerves me. The wiggler seems especially active at night. I put an eyepatch on when brushing my teeth, it’s so distracting. The maggot doesn’t like that and itches my eyeball until I take it off. It wants to see and know everything.

I heard extraction is a bitch. That you always feel lopsided and alone. Forceps can be painful since the grub fights you every step of the removal. I know because I’ve tried to remove it after a YouTube tutorial. It shrieked when I snared its nasty tail, blackening my vision and collapsing my mind. So I let go.

Some successful extractions have decided to reinstall the eye maggot, to even get two. Two are not required, only recommended. Today’s recommendation is tomorrow’s stipulation. Some less successful extractions go blind, but I do feel blind most of the time, scrolling, scrolling and scrolling as the world blurs by. But in these times, it’s best not to look too closely. You don’t want to start thinking. Or dreaming. The maggot is the most active at night, making sure to sterilize your fears and sanitize your wants. Flies don’t just lay their eggs in the dead but the living who are dying.

All progress is good because it’s progress. Never mind what we’re progressing to. We will progress until we don’t need each other anymore, until all we need is the maggot which will be swimming in our eyes until we die.