Their Eyes Were Watching Me

A Story by Kelley Quinn

A short story

I am a potato, planted deeply in the fertile soil of the Earth on a damp Tuesday morning. “This one has potential,” says the farmer. The nutrients from my elders and the saving rain from the sky makes me whole, makes me healthy. If you held me in your outstretched palm, dirt encased and dry, I am the heaviest and the heartiest, my roots soaked with information. My callous skin browns from the many ages spent in the soil of life, harvesting and growing. Take me out, let me breathe.

“You are not ripe,” says the farmer. But I plead: Look at me. I scream with my many eyes starving for recognition. My plump body bursting with secrets and promises: this is the potato that could take on the world, if given the chance. Please. I seem weak, my form: petite and young, but I am strong. Those brittle droughts struck down the others in their wake; but not I, for my roots reach deep in determination.

“You will suffer,” says the farmer. I will not. I cannot. Roots planted firmly, I whisper the mantra that has kept me alive: I am Strong. I am strong. My eyes reach to the heavens above, seen dimly through the cracks of my cage, as I cry out, Let me show you!

Look Inside: My skin, cracked and rough, protects my naked esteem from the harsh, jagged rocks encompassing me. Inside the mush and the pliable stuffing, shows a potato that, if given the opportune chance, could become something finer than French fries, something better than a baked bum. I could be, will be, a dish, a meal, a gourmet feast, if given the chance. Choose me.

“Yes,” says the farmer.