Blind

The sun shined brightly through the trees into a small clearing. A day had never been so dark. A man, standing in the middle of the clearing, saw nothing that was now before him. The man was blind, though not physically; as an observer would guess from his lifeless stare. The blindness he suffered from was the same emotional blindness that every person is born with; slowly growing like a dormant cancer. The man’s cancer had remained dormant as well, that is, until moments before.

The man’s stare never wavered. To anyone looking on from outside the clearing it would seem that the man had only been holding his gaze for minutes. To him, however, it had been hours… days… years? The thicket in front of the man was almost impenetrable. You could barely tell that it was green beneath the blood. The man was calm.

He descended quickly to his knees. He was sprawled with his feet to his sides and his arms drooping into the blood-stained grass. The man held this pose for days; this time to observers and blind men alike. On the third day, he realized that the tips of his dominant fingers were seductively grazing the hilt of his knife. The knife had been lying next to him in the grass; there wasn’t a bit of blood on the blade. The bright blue and golds that composed the hilt taunted him. It was the only thing bright in the clearing.

The man never once shifted his gaze. The knife slowly ascended in his dominant hand. It was heavier than anything the he had ever held. He shifted the blade within his hand before transferring it to the other. Once he had lost his dexterity, his dominant hand would compensate. The man never once shifted his gaze.

Suddenly, the man could hear her voice again. It was as sweet as he remembered. The voice was growing louder from beyond the thicket. The blade was growing lighter within his hand. Her voice wasn’t screaming for help this time; it wasn’t drowned out by snarls. The man’s heartbeat remained steady. Her voice was almost on top of him now. The knife was so light. She was speaking so clearly now. He could’ve sworn she was in the clearing with him; if only he could shift his gaze. The knife was so light that he thought it was part of his hand. Finally, for the first time in days, the man could see…