In Her Eyes

Me

The night is cold. My feet numb on the freezing pavement. My mind races to better days in an attempt to distract my consciousness from the torture my body has to endure. The icy breeze becomes a faint feeling as I am transported to the beautiful comfort of my subconscious imagination. The darkness of my covered eyes fades into a bright shining blue sky above an abundant glowing field of sunflowers. Warmth overcomes my body as I run through the tall golden stalks. In the distance, I can hear flutters of laughter of a little girl. Gaining speed I run through the field trying to find the origin of the giggles. As I trail through the infinite amber meadow the tall thick grass begins to thin out and I can hear the laughter even clearer. I struggle to move my heavy legs through the clearing, but I eventually manage to.

About 40 yards in the distance I can see a shining white house with a black rooftop and bright red shutters with many colorful birdhouses dangling from a large sycamore tree planted only a couple of yards from the home. A mother with a sparkling smile and two intense blue eyes is pushing her daughter on a homemade swing on a thick tree branch. As I walk closer I can see the daughter also has the same intense eyes as the mother. She is wearing a bright pink shirt with distressed jean overalls and shiny rain boots covered in rainbow polka dots. I inch closer and the two girls are beginning to look extremely familiar. I feel as if I've been here before like I've walked this path and felt this warm breeze through my hair before. Just as I am about to approach the mother pushing the swing I feel a cold burly hand wrap around my bruised arm. The mother and the beautiful field begins to fade away as reality regains its tight hold on me. A shock of cold hits me like a bus and I stand frozen in a painful state.

"Come on Dahlia. You are coming inside now. Your punishment will continue tomorrow though!" yelled Father as his grip on my arm tightened. He began to pull me towards the door but my body was numb and rejected his advances. That only caused him to get angrier and jolted my lifeless like body forward and dragged me across the floor. My ankle hit the side of the doorway and sent a bolt of pain up my leg. Water filled my eyes as I bit down on my tongue to keep me from whimpering in pain because that would only make Father angrier. Droplets of my tears fell from my freckled cheek and were smeared into the cold floor. He flung me into my room for the night and bolted the door closed. There I sit in all alone in pain consumed by the complete darkness. I can hear faint screams of anger from Father as he walks away from my heavy metal door. At least he is finding new ways to express his blind rage.

I hate it when Father is mad because he always takes it all out on me. Four hours ago he came home in a fury and slammed open my door. He firmly gripped my arm and pulled me out the door and dragged my frail body through the house. With my legs full of splinters from the rough wooden floors, I was tossed onto the patio outside where I've been forced to stand for the past four hours. I'm used to it though. Father always throws me outside to be swallowed by the cold night when he is angry, it somehow makes him feel better when he knows I'm in pain. Father normally is only mad when I don't follow his rules. I broke the biggest one earlier. I took off my blindfold.

I am to always wear my blindfold no matter what. The only exception is in my room, but only when Father has the door shut. My room is like a dark abyss. There are no windows or light sources of any kind and there is no bed, just a pillow, and one blanket. It's not like I need to see anyway though. Father tells me I've been blind ever since a car accident I got in with my mother when I was just seven. She died, but I survived with near-total blindness and a rare eye condition that causes my eyes to be extremely sensitive to light. Ever since then I've worn a brown cloth blindfold to protect my eyes from the light.

I just know he's lying because when I take my blindfold off near the sun I can see fine. I simply just want to know why he would lie to me, and why he would hide something this big. I mean, this is my whole life, this disease. And if it's not even real then my whole life is a lie. I mean maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe I imagined it. Maybe he is right and my vivid imagination made it into reality. I had to know for sure. 

Earlier today when Father let me out of my room to eat dinner my mind yearned for just a peek of the beautiful outdoors, like the one in my dreams. So, I gave in to the craving. I picked up a strawberry from my plate and took a small bite. The sweet fruit burned the inside of my scraped up mouth.

"Father. I don't mean to burden you, but can I please have a glass of water?" I asked in hopes it would get him to be turned away from me.

"Fine.", Father responded in a monotone voice. I heard his fork hit the tabletop and the sound of footsteps trail across the kitchen. The cabinet let out a faint squeak as I purposely dropped one of my strawberries onto the ground. I bent down in my chair to pick it up when I quickly took my hand slipped a part of the thick brown cloth that covered my eye up. Outside the window, I saw what seemed to be a group of yellow flowers. Maybe sunflowers.

"DAHLIA! WHY IS YOUR BLINDFOLD OFF!", He dropped the glass and ran over and grabbed both of my arms and picked my sore body up and ran through the house and threw me into the dark fortress he calls my room. I heard him leave the house and I began to fear my upcoming punishment which was standing for hours in the icy night.

My ankle throbbed as I wrapped up in my one blanket hoping to rub off the numbness the night had emitted on me. I began to cry, "All I wanted was to look out the window.". I sniffled, " Just f-for o-o-one second.". I started to hyperventilate, "Just one thing. O-one thing. That's all I a-ask for.". Tears erupted from my face as I began hysterically mumbling. I laid my battered head on my thin pillow, still shaking from my breakdown when I heard an unfamiliar sound.

A knock. There is someone knocking on our door. I haven't heard a knock on our door EVER.