Blind

Azure. I still remember the freedom painted onto the endless canvas of azure blue sky: the sky that I will never see again. And I am grateful. Not for the sightlessness that surrounds me day and night, but for how my captors have opened up the world for me to see it afresh. Anew.

Paradoxical, isn't it? To live in darkness, yet simultaneously gain perceptive. But I digress; I have a story to tell.

***

Someone grabs my wrist roughly and I snatch it back, scrambling away. My arm is already stiff with hand-shaped bruises imprinted into the tender flesh; I cradle it possessively like the child I never had. It is unresponsive. Just like the stillborn bodies that lie 6 feet under gravestones I'd cried over.

They move quickly, closing in on me. I am cornered; a wild animal. Just like last time. A clinical efficiency that understands me as merely another task to be completed. Machine verses animal; there is no soul, no compassion, no humanity there.

I feel the needle go in and its cold touch is the last thing I remember before the sensation hits me. Not like a tonne of bricks, but like a freight train hurtling, rolled up tight in a snowstorm of confusion; the carpet unravels and I pitch forward into nothing, clawing at the world to no avail: no way to tell, is it left, right, up, centre ... and suddenly I'm on it; steaming forward.

Pure exhilaration floods my mind; I exhale wonderingly at the power coursing through my veins. My eyes snap open and for a moment, I see the world as it is, laid out before me like a pack of cards, waiting for me to take my pick. Then it is gone along with my vision.

***

"Who are you?" he asked. I face him, broken, hearing the sadistic smile in his voice egging me on.

"Why do you care?" I long for that bittersweet rush, wanting to unlock that euphoria that only he possesses; yet I don't. I cannot let go of myself never mind that I've already sold my soul.

He is silent. Then a whisper brushes past, featherlight. Father.

And I know.

***

The smell of baking meanders through the air luxuriously. Lifting my sightless eyes upwards, I savour the unexpected while it lasts: the memories, vivid as life. Rough hands always in motion. A familiar apron tied neatly around the waist. Kind eyes worn around the edges with laughter lines. Mother. She brought us together, taking Father away from a troubled family and feeding him a diet of sunshine and milk until all the darkness within him was purged and he could love us openly, freely.

A voice growls, breaking the peace as a pebble thrown carelessly into a still pond does. The homely atmosphere shatters. Lost.

"This is for stealing a family, a father you never deserved."

The needle slips in while I reel at the words. A quick pinch, no more. The smell sours; acrid instead of sweet. It lodges in my throat while my eyes water. I blink reflexively and my face is suddenly damp. The ground tilts and I snatch at nothing while the world bats me around like an idle cat with a ball of yarn. I feel my heart rate increase and my throat tighten; panic encroaches. Mocking laughter surrounds me like a house of mirrors, distorted, broken, grotesque. My breathing accelerates erratically, breaking free of the meagre control I had still retained. Closing my eyes, I curl into the foetus position, feeling everything close in around me, unable to breathe. The tears leak out of my closed eyes, making their damp presence known while time ticks by. One tick for every 5 seconds.

I hear His voice stating cold hard fact without a shred of warmth. "You are nothing. Remember that."

***

The warm, inviting smell of sizzling butter, flour and a tinge of vanilla floods my nostrils and I shudder, a bucket of icy apprehension upended down my back.

I screw up my eyes, turn my head away, retreating violently from the smell. It follows me curiously, sniffing persistently at me. I swallow hard, retching slightly; the nausea comes out of nowhere.

"Had enough?" The taunting voice is back, twisted slightly by the spinning that threatens to engulf my consciousness.

"Yes," I choke out, "Please. I'll do whatever you want."

"All I want you to do is answer one question," the voice smirks. A breath brushes past my ear, depositing a mind worm into my subconsciousness: "Who are you?" The thought eats into me as I drift into oblivion.

***

Gentle hands cup my face. They smooth my hair back like Mother did when I was sick. They lift me up, up, up, to a place where no one bakes, no one whispers sweet nothings in my ear, where there are no needles, no feelings, no emotion. Just silence.

***

Who am I? It's certainly a question that I've asked myself enough times in my youth. I have no more an answer than I did then, but perhaps I've learnt to believe that it doesn't matter anymore. After all, it never did.