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All sheep have the same eyes

Now it's a common fact that sheep have disturbing eyes. I mean, seriously, why would there be pupils that look like that? They just look like demon eyes in a living stuffed animal which is even worse than I thought as I type out the description.

Despite the fact that everyone knows that all of the eyes are terrifying, very few know the even more interesting secret about their eyes. It turns out, that all sheep share the same pair of eyes. Now, I know that may be hard to believe, but I bet anyone reading this cannot tell me that they can remember two different sheep with different eyes. It turns out that despite the millions (I assume) of sheep in the world there are only two real eyes. The vast majority of sheep in the world use glass eyes to maintain a somewhat less terrifying appearance than just having empty eye sockets.

Sheep are able to maintain their species with only set of eyes in several ways. There are the glass eyes that I previously mentioned, but there is also the hive mind. The hive mind allows all sheep to see through the one pair of eyes and allows the current sheep holding the eyes to tap into the other sheep's senses and help them figure out where they are and thus not run into or off of anything.

Another thing that helps all sheep is their generosity, organization, desire to abide by the rules, and strong sense of community. Since only one sheep can have the eyes at once, it's only fair that as many sheep as possible get a turn. The sheep hive mind continuously updates their waiting list for the eyes which requires incredible organization on their part. Wanting to abide by the rules the hive mind has set up as well as ensure that everyone gets their fair chance allows the list to be updated based on life expectancy as well distance from the current eye-holder. Sheep manage not to get mad when they get bumped further down the list because they know that every sheep deserves to know the pleasure of seeing the world for itself. Finally, the sense of community reinforces all of these things. Valuing community makes sheep dedicated to organization, rules, and fairness.

Now sheep keep this secret from us because they fear it would make them more terrifying to us. This is a fair assumption. I mean, how have you felt reading this expose? Probably put you in a weird state of mind, yes? Imagining knowing this as a fact each time you see a sheep and not knowing if the sheep in front of you is the one with the eyes or if it really is just fake eyes staring at you. Or what if you knew that the sheep hive mind was always watching? Think about how far out sheep are spread...what things do they know? What things can their hive mind teach us? What other secrets do they keep? I mean, they managed to keep the fact that they all share one pair of eyes from almost everyone and that seems like it'd be hard to do. Are the sheep working alone or is someone already taking advantage of their hive mind?

What other animals share only one pair of eyes? Further research needs to be conducted, but I would theorize that if they don't, it seems like many other animals likely have capabilities we don't know or understand.

Look at the closet animal to you, are those its own eyes?

(Prompt by someone/some people in my cohort)







Photo by Pablo Dodda from Buenos Aires, Argentina,  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sheep_eye_close-up.jpg

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