Blind Eyes

Chapter One

And sobbing, she explained to me that he was dead. And I would have been sad, I would have cried, I would have been in shock, if it were not what she said next. My mother, weak as ever, found it hard to get her words out. When she did, she managed to convey to me that he had hung himself from the apple tree next to his house, with the rope he used to tie up his horse. She told me that she didn't know why, that she was sorry, that she was so, so sorry for me.

But I was not paying attention to her words. I was already gone. The hate was already emerging from the core of my body, a lion wrapping its jaws around the writhing gazelle. I felt it bubbling up inside of me, not threatening to spill out but rather to fill my mind with its horrible voice and horrible whispers.

I hated him. He lied to me. That very day, he had told me how happy he was. And then he left, left me all alone. I learned that he did not leave a note, no message, nothing to explain why he did what he did. No one knew that he was going to do what he did. But I should have known, he should have told me. We had always been truthful to each other.

And from that point on, I hated him for killing himself. I hate him for making me hate him. I have never felt anything so strongly before. Only that it is utterly pointless to hate him. He is dead. I cannot feed the hate that he has given me. But it will not leave.

So now I sit here, on this chair, in this room that is too big and too dark. I see his family weeping in the chairs beside me. They think that they have failed him. I watch his friends that he didn't like walk in and sit in the row behind me. And then I watch the rest of the town, the mayor, the doctor, the butcher, and others, file into this too-big room and sit down. Except for my parents - they aren't here. I told them not to come, and they listened to me because they think I am sad.

This town is small - small enough to fit in one enormous room, and small enough so that everyone knows who he is. Everyone said they loved him, but he sure did not love everyone. And although everyone made sure to express that they loved him, as they sit in this desolate room, I see them looking down at their feet, up at the ceiling, or talking to each other in barely audible whispers. I do not talk. I look straight ahead of me at the black casket which lays at the other end of the room.

As I look at the simple casket, I know I need to see him. I want him to see me too, to see the hate in my eyes, and it pains me to know that he never will. In my hand, I hold a single rose that I bought from the market earlier this morning. As I stand up from the cold chair, I grip the rose tightly in my left hand. I get up and walk slowly, as quietly as I can, to the other end of the room, my dress that I hate swishing ever so slightly above my knees. There is no one near me anymore - no one had dared be the first to leave the comfort of their chairs. I can feel them watching me as I approach the coffin, and then I hear them gasp as I do the unspeakable, as I firmly grab the heavy lid in my hand and pull it open. The coffin swings open, and I can finally see him.

His eyes are open, and I am grateful for that, because I can see his eyes that I so desperately needed to see. They are green, as they always were, and when I look into them, it feels the same as it did when he was alive. Except he isn't. He's dead, and my hatred will never let me forget that. I wish I could stand here, in this spot, forever. I wish I could stand here while his body starts to rot, when his teeth turn black, when he starts to smell like vile meat, and I wish I could watch him rot until he is nothing anymore. But that is not an option.

I could feel the others - his family, his friends - staring at me before, but now they glare. I wasn't supposed to open the coffin. There was a reason it was closed, but I didn't care and I wanted to open it, so I did. I stare down at his eyes for some time, and when I feel that I have had enough, I place the thorny rose on his chest. I reach down and move his hands so that they cling to the rose tightly, just as mine had done before, bright spots of blood appearing as the thorns puncture his skin. And when the rose rests on his body, in between his hands, I take hold of the coffin lid, and bring it down as hard as hard as I can. The bang reverberates in the large room, and when I turn around, I see his mother and father look at me, so disappointedly.