POiSON WORLD

I am hideous.

There is no gentle way to say it or euphemism that can be used to describe me other than ‘hideous.’ I don’t have eyes to see my own reflection but I know that to be true.  My body tried to heal the broken windows to my soul with scars, and my friend with stitches, but both proved futile. My eyes are gone, burned out, because not even I should have to recoil in horror at my own reflection. I did nothing but accept the fact that I am without sight and that I am hideous.

A world of darkness possesses its own charm, however. The gentle tweet of morning larks becomes a symphony. The rustle of leaves in the wind and the tired groans of ancient mountains accompany the feathered singers. The sun’s rays become a mere sensation on the skin, pleasant and warm, not a burden to my nonexistent eyes. The cool mountain breezes carry the sweet aroma of sycamore trees that drift through my spacious stone shelter where only I can enjoy it. I never knew before that the sycamore tree possessed that calming, tea-like scent. I fell in love with my mountain paradise. I feel in love with my solitude. I am hideous but I am surrounded by unseen beauty.

Standing at the ledge of my home, a cliff where the sycamores meet the stone, with my wings spread wide, I listen. Warm beams of sunlight dance upon my face and the sweet wind ruffles my feathers. The birds call each other, their songs a like a delicate, lost language. I pucker my lips and whistle to them, mimicking their song. I don’t understand them and I don’t know if they understand me—they’re birds and I’m a mutated man—but we make harmonious music together. I smile and then laugh. It is one of the joys in my life, to feel as if I’m a part of something as special as the tune of songbirds.

Then the birds stop singing and there is emptiness. My smiling ceases. Light, steady footsteps approach my shelter and I know they belong to my friend. When I had eyes, my friend was the epitome of beauty with porcelain skin and wavy copper hair. He is a source of envy for most but of admiration for me. He talks to me about whatever I desire while tending to my stitches. He’s the one who sewed my broken eyes and the wound over my chest that aches with every beat of my slow heart. He’s my savior, my guardian angel, and my only friend.

“You look happy today, Michael,” he is the only person who calls me by my given name. “Whistling at the birds again, I see.”

“They whistle back, Sir,” I sit on the ground and turn my face up towards him, knowing this century old routine all too well. The damp cloth dabs the stitches on my eyes and cheeks, stinging the wounds that never seemed to heal. “Do you think the birds know that I’m hideous?”

My friend works carefully as if he doesn’t want to damage an already repulsive being, treating my face with the same tenderness as he would his own. “You’re not hideous, Michael. Just different.”

“Isn’t everyone different?”

“Exactly. So we’re all the same.” A rustle of clothing and a light tap indicated to me that he has kneeled to match my posture. “You’re just like me; and I, you.”

A needle painlessly pierces the wound on my chest and tugs the puffy skin around the gash. The thin skin that protects my heart has numbed over the years.  He never hurts me. I feel his cool hand beside the wound. “Actually, I wish I was more like you. I wish everyone was…” he had learned closer to work on the stitches, his breath on my chest, not wanting to make a single mistake.

“You want everyone to be hideous?”

A humorless chuckle sounds from him, like dull chimes. “Everyone is already hideous. We forget what really matters in this world and focus on what we can see. Often times, we don’t see what’s truly there.”

“I don’t see at all.”

“You see everything,” the thread is cut, the wound on my chest stitched. How can I see everything when I don’t have eyes? I cannot see what’s beautiful and what is not.

I know nothing of beauty.