In 2005, a group of friends reportedly got lost in an "empty city" while traveling Europe. Their train to Prague made an unexpected stop, and they got off in a nameless town.
Buildings were solid, windowless. "There was a crowd, but no people in it. They moved like clockwork."
Empty cars drove in synchrony, without traffic lights. Streets had no names. Billboard ads showed impossible items. One of them would describe the place as "the idea of a city."
They only managed to leave after waiting in the station for an entire day, until a real train arrived.
Wind-Up Hopping Eyeball is a classic creature, I think! In fictional worlds, Bat-Winged Eyeball is quite a classic creature, but that is not feasible in the real world. Eyeball With Feet, however, is! It is real, it is in our world, it hops among us! Welcome it into your home!
Yes, the humble Eyeball With Feet is a beloved little creature. Hold it gently in your palm. Usually, human feet are off-putting, really the least aesthetically pleasing of nearly any animal, but somehow, an eyeball pulls it off! There is just something so earnest about the combination of a big ol’ eyeball with strangely realistically-shaped feet. It is such a little animal, inquisitive about the world, it wants to see as much as it can! Take it for a world tour! Take it to the zoo, the puppet theater, the Aurora Borealis, all the wonderful sights!
Evidently, however, back in 1999, they had not quite figured out the feet thing. So this one hops around on just a plastic slab, almost like a surfboard or a single ski! This one also has some kind of… sclerotic ring? Wow! This is no human eye! Unlike the modern ones with feet growing out of them, which are real human eyes!
There are, in fact, many members of the order Winduphoppingeyeballiformes, some more strangely derived than others! Here we have a more basal one that never had the need to evolve away from Flesh, but DID need to adapt by moving its eyelashes to the surface of the eyeball itself! If this creature could not blink and have its eyelashes still sticking out from between its eyelids, it would Die.
You already know that Wind-Up Hopping Eyeball is here to Hop! And it needs YOUR help! This poor critter is proof that there IS a God, and that He is malevolent. Wind-Up Hopping Eyeballs, went extinct in the wild soon after they spontaneously manifested, and only survive thanks to the humans kind enough to take them in and wind up their twisty-wisties to get them hopping. Captive breeding programs HAVE been successful, though with no plans to return them to the wild, where they would once again be doomed on their own with nobody to twist them. They sound more like a little toy than a creature when it’s put that way, but whatever. The efforts to upkeep Wind-Up Hopping Eyeball populations have taken a toll on the efforts to save other endangered species, but it’s ok! Scientists have proven that Wind-Up Hopping Eyeball is the most important animal, so don’t worry!
I hope you can See why Wind-Up Hopping Eyeball is so special! Hee hee! If it had a signature laugh, it might sound like “see hee hee”!