Stories Weave From The Bruises Of Imagination

The Kindly Offer 🪞

In quivering voice, she answered,"I made up my mind and nothing changes in my decision. Take it away now and let it leave quickly."

The snake acquiescely delve its fangs at her left ear and despatches it away from her head, it swallowed it whole and then crawled to her other shoulder in which it did the same action. She felt the fangs like arrows thwarted with poison, it made her body tremble like as if a sacred thing has been lift off from her.
The snake apologizes for her loss and thanked her for his meal freely given. But the girl never heard any of his words, for now she had become deaf. The two sides of her head are bleeding like a surging falls that cannot be stopped.

She went home to her family's house where she bandaged her head, for a couple week it stayed like that. The elders scold her for being careless for losing both ears whom are much useful. But gladly, she did not hear any of their words. Though, her eyes had still reflected the angry look on each faces. She went on with her daily task at the house but the walls bore faces of disappointment; waiting in each room are familiar judging gazes. Peering scorn and dismayed at this ridiculous girl.
For three weeks, she endure the pain stabbing of the lingering eyes until she couldn't anymore. She decided to let her eyes be gone away.

The girl went to the same place she last met the snake. Some leaves were falling, some were burning with yellow. She called and begged for the snake to come out. But she went home downhearted, for no shadow of her found friend came that day.

Next day came and she waited until dusk. As she look up at the sky, many stars were out and the crescent moon shone a pale glow in the night sky. Among a clasp of bushes was a hiss of an animal. It crawled towards her and declared it's presence. The girl did not notice as she was looking above and has after all already lost her ears so the snake tap her toes which cause her to jump in fright.

"Did you called for me?"asked the snake pointing it's tail at himself.

The girl bowed as a greeting and state her request,"I called for you yesterday and today to ask you of another kind offer you might take. It is about my eyes."
She then crouch down near the ground and the snake saw that her eyes' color matches the dried crunch leaves under her feet. And also the bark of the trees that helped them stand for as long as they can

He spoke,"Your eyes already possesses the color your ancestors had seen and been pass over by tribesmen to another. What do you loathe them for?" and he spoke of it like a friend with concern on another's choices.

The girl, understanding some of his words, truthfully admit," Yesterday I barely wanted to part from it. For I do not loathe it but only hated the things it sees when I am among my kind. I wish to part with it now so that it will rest at last in peace."

"I will tell you this, For what I did to your ears is not a kind offer but a cruel one...."continued the snake,"the offer has slip from my tongue for I do not sometimes watch my words. Leave these thoughts and do not part me with it. Live your life freely and be not afraid of shadows."

"No, it is a kind offer"the girl answered defended,"For it has save me my demise."

She paused.

Then she pleaded,"Help me get rid of my eyes, though they've shown me beautiful things to admire, it had also did not escape me from the piercing eyes of another."

There was silence from the snake. For he doesn't know what to say.

A few flies, mosquitoes, and fireflies flew around them. With a desperate heart at the snake's silence, the girl catch the two fireflies that flew near her and burn each her eyes with it. She was in agony for a while at her own doing. Now, she has become blind as she pluck the two eyes away from their places. The snake was shock to witness such a scene, he rattled and back away as the girl offered her two eyes.

"Here,"she called,"here, keep it away from me and my heart shall rest now I lack sight of anything hurtful to see."

Pity had taken ahold of the snake as he accepted it and patted the girl's hand with his tail.
"I shall bury it in a proper tomb, For I pity you seeing you doing this to yourself,"stated the snake,"What may be this madness that made you cruel to your own? But alas! You couldn't hear me nor see me."

The girl stand up slowly and says her thanks and apologies for being a bother. The snake replied in farewell,"Goodbye now! And may you not consult me anymore of anything you wanted to be ridden of. This, we shall part as stranger to stranger."

He help the girl find her way back home as she stumbles from rock to branches. The girl thanked him greatly and promises her generation's service to the snake.

A few days drift with the girl being blind, her family now let her be with her missing pieces. "She's always been a careless and thoughtless girl!"they remark and hated. But as the girl doesn't have eyes and ears for it, she did not hear nor saw any of what they speak nor their glaring gazes.

It started to feel better for the girl. She was quite joyous in her dark world, with nothing except by the touches that came from her palms and soles or a rub to her cheeks from their family cat's fur. It was new and alarming to her sometimes as she still adjusted about it.

**

For a couple weeks, all was well or so to the girl it was. She became quite useless now to her family. She keep stumbling around walls and baskets, leaving more work to be finish late than earlier. And for that she was bruised physically either by fist or by metal sticks. After the end of the third week, she was again miserable so she sought for death. But death is nowhere near.
She thought of the snake and went at the back of their house looking, searching for something to find. The snake decided to not venture on that place for a while. He does not like getting into other people's troubles; he is fine on his own.

Desperate and disappointed at coming not across the snake, the girl stole their new bought kitchen knife and plunge it into her chest under the bright and sunny afternoon of October. She was hidden among bushes and shrubs when she commit the crime. There was no turning back, death now faces her. She open the wound widely and pick up her heart, cutting each joining veins out of its way.

There at the palm of her hand lay her bleeding heart. It wept in sorrow for its owner's madness. It cried out long, it cried out far as the girl fell flat upon the ground. The snake heard the call as the heart rolled away from the girl's hand.
When the snake came to the place, he knows madness has taken over her.

"Oh, what does this child has done!"he muttered in grief,"She ruined it all for herself, even afterlife has no freedom for her now."

The heart was a bit alive and it called out a word in repeat,"Help! Help!" so it says.

The snake escorted the heart back to the girl's family's doorsteps. He hiss as a sign of introducing himself but the girl's little cousin (whom had first seen it) was so frightened that out came the uncle and the girl's parents witnessing a snake having trespass into their premises. There were slashing and waving of axe and knives as the snake tried to explain what he had brought. But it was too late, the father slashed away the snake's head from his body and there is the end of him.

They burned the snake afterwards as they don't want something so foul lying around. And the family, in thought that the heart came from the snake's prey and probably filled with poison, they too burn. For they thought it was a pig's heart.

THE END.