Give Me My Eyes

 

Brown

His name was Manro Brown, a thirty-year-old man with a demon buried deep inside him. When people talk about “a few good men,” Manro Brown was never one of them. He hadn’t always been this way. Once, he was calm, focused, and full of ambition—he wanted to be one of the greatest doctors in the world. But life had other plans.

He was doing well in medical school at Brown University when he got introduced to drugs at a party. The habit took over and destroyed his academic career. Soon he was drifting through the streets, unable to hold a job. The economy was terrible—bills piled up, paychecks barely covered rent, and everyone said this recession was the worst in American history.

One day, after passing out on the sidewalk, he woke up with a flier stuck to his cheek. It advertised a job as a mortician at a rundown morgue with decent pay. Desperate, he staggered there.

The place was old, out of the way, and full of bodies. It was the kind of cheap facility people used when they couldn’t afford better. Manro slammed the flier on the desk. “Still available?” he asked, eyes bloodshot.

“You’re the first one to show up,” the clerk said. “First come, first served. You want it, it’s yours. Can you start now?”

“Yeah,” Manro muttered.

The job was simple: tag bodies, check the refrigeration units, keep things running. He took it. Some nights he sat alone, thinking about his old life in med school, shaking his head. “Life sucks,” he’d whisper.

A month and a half later, two men approached him at a dive bar near the morgue.

“You Manro Brown?” one asked.

“Who’s asking?”

“Name’s Zolan. This is Zero. We’ve got a side deal for you.”

“What kind of deal?”

Zolan lowered his voice. “Extra cash. You know how tight things are right now. Some people are interested in… special arrangements with the bodies that come in.”

Manro raised an eyebrow. “What kind of arrangements?”

“Things they want taken care of. You help us, you get a cut. Sixty-forty. You’re the one inside, so you take the bigger risk.”

Manro thought about the bills, the empty fridge, the date he couldn’t afford. He nodded. “Deal.”

From then on, he started making real money. Nice clothes, good food, dates at expensive restaurants. Life felt different—until the child’s body arrived.

She couldn’t have been older than twelve. Manro felt a chill as he prepared her. That night, Zolan sent a message: they needed something specific from her. Manro hesitated, but the money was too good. He did it.

A week later, he had a date. He smiled as he adjusted his new jacket, thinking how far he’d come. Maybe tonight would end with her in his arms. He whistled as he left his apartment.

At the restaurant, everything was going great. He was charming, laughing, winning her over—until he saw the girl standing beside his date. She looked exactly like the child from the morgue.

“Give me back what you took,” she said in a soft, hollow voice.

Manro blinked hard. She was still there.

“What’s wrong?” his date asked.

“Nothing,” he forced a smile.

“Give it back,” the girl repeated, stepping closer.

Manro pressed back in his chair. “Stay away from me.”

“Give it back,” she whispered again and again.

He couldn’t take it. “I’m sorry!” he shouted. “I’m sorry for what I did! I took things that weren’t mine!”

His date stared. People turned. Someone called the police.

Manro kept talking, confessing everything—how he’d betrayed the dead for money. The cops arrived and took him away.

In the end, Manro Brown learned a hard truth:

Money can buy you a lot of things, but it can never buy back your conscience.

Some debts the dead will always come to collect.