Phobia

44. Third Eye

TW - SH

I carved out my eyes at the age of sixteen - it was my birthday present to myself. I'd rather live in the dark. It's not like I saw a sight I wish I could erase. The world is just too colourful. It has ugliness hidden beneath the colours. Without sight, I was impartial. I could see beneath the layers without being blinded by beauty.

I hadn't always decided to carve out my eyes. As a child, I used tamer methods. I would blindfold myself and just feel the world. It felt very different without sight. At first, I regretted it a bit, with the relentless pain and the unexpected vulnerability. But it got better. Much better. My other senses sharpened drastically. If someone dropped a piece of paper, I could hear it fluttering down. My intuition was almost better than sight - I could sense any danger even when people couldn't see it. Eventually, I came to consider that day as my most precious memory - the day on which other kids my age went to parties, bought expensive gifts and hung out with their friends, but I sat in my room, facing the mirror and gouging my eyes out. 

Sometimes, I feel like it has stopped me from making connections with people. After all, no one wants to befriend the girl who carved her own eyes out. If she could do that to herself, imagine what she could do to others... My parents tolerate me because I'm their only child, but sometimes I can trace the fear in their voices. But I'm content. I'd rather not be deluded that a lot of people care for me. The absence of sight bared the truth to me, and contrary to popular belief, it's not ugly. It's unfiltered. It keeps me honest, another quality not a lot of people appreciate. But I don't feel the need to honey my words when I don't even want to please someone. People whisper behind my back, that I've got issues, not knowing I can hear them. Maybe I do have issues; maybe I wasn't born normal. But that doesn't matter, because all they can do is talk. 

None of them would ever dare to do what I did. They can't experience enlightenment. And I have no interest in helping them. I tried once. She was like me, or at least I thought she was. She burnt her tongue. But unlike me, she never came around to cherish the gift I gave her. I was disappointed. I thought she'd accept herself, but she wanted to change. She hated me. It hurt. It hurt so much. Because she was supposed to love me. She was supposed to be like me. So I went to meet her. 

Which was how I found myself bleeding out of a wound on my head on the floor of her room. And she didn't even bother to find out if I was still alive when she burned me. I was, though. She burned me alive.

The woman on the hospital bed screamed in horror as I stopped talking. I couldn't see her, but I could feel her terror as she mumbled under her breath that it was all a dream, trying to convince herself.

After all, which one-year-old baby speaks so fluently?