She looked at me and gave me a wrinkled smile. Well when I said look, I mean I got the impression that her eyes were trained on me beneath the cloth that blindfolded her. It was like a scene out of a Kung Fu movie. The master blindfolded, ready to make a move.
“Welcome. Fancy having a stranger such as yourself here in these lands,” she said.
“Well, I’m just a curious traveler that’s all,” I replied.
“Are you now?”
“Well yes actually,”
Indeed I was. Travelling into this remote part of the world, with a population density so low that the next person is a few kilometers away. It made me wonder why the distance between each other, so I asked.
“Why do you live out here all alone? And I noticed that the last person I met was alone as well and far away. You all live far apart from each other,”
“We like the distance because it allows us to channel,”
“Channel?”
“Yes. Energies from the ground flow better when there’s less resistance from the human presence.”
“Do you all live alone?”
“Not all of us. There are families. But it’s one family per encampment. There are either us lone individuals or a family. Nothing more than that. There’re no large population areas, except for the town near the airport from which you arrived.”
“I see,”
Strange culture.
“Only strange to a stranger. Acceptance and lack of fear for the foreign comes with a clearer understanding of it,”
Now that creeped me out. I was talking to a blindfolded psychic.
“It’s easy to read what’s on your mind. Your thought waves emanated like ripples in a lake and I just felt them. Don’t be afraid. It’s the gift we get for being so in-tune with nature. I won’t hurt you,”
“That’s nice,”
“Believe me, there’re far worse things that kill you than me. Now, please, go ahead and ask your silly question,”
This mind reading business was now getting annoying. I wonder what else could she read. I hope she left the porno corner of my mind alone.
“You’re a man in touch with your primal instincts and drive. Your urge to view the material that fuels the beast in your loins is normal. It’s just your instincts calling you. Your inner animal,”
Had I been drinking a beverage I would have sprayed my drink from my mouth all over her. Her statement made it hard for me to suppress my snicker. She left quite a smile on my face and it was threatening to turn into laughter.
“The way you said it. It was funny,”
“It’s good that you liked that. We all need to laugh and smile no?”
“Indeed,”
“The world is in such state that we all need to learn to smile again. A genuine smile too. As you young people say, a proper one, not a “half ass” one. Half an ass. What’s the obsession with the bottom I wonder sometimes. The lingo of your youth amazes me as much as I do you.”
I laughed, unable to hold it anymore. This is actually turning out to be a good holiday.
“A good holiday indeed. Now ask me that funny thought in your head,”
“Well if you’re psychic then why don’t you read my mind?”
“Because you have a mouth so I would like you to use it now,”
“Fair enough…why do children wear glasses these days? I’ve noticed that nowadays, the age of children starting to wear glasses seem to be getting younger. Too much TV or something?”
I didn’t know why I had that weird thought in my head. I guess it was the imagery I had of children in the many back seats of cars that passed by my taxi as I headed to the airport to leave my country. It struck me as quite a shocker that the age of wearing glasses is getting younger. I guess it’s our current age of technology. Cellphone screens, TV screens, excessive computer games. All that eye poison.
“Those pay a toll on the eyes, but they are just mere pricks. There are worse daggers that cut deep,”
I was now listening quietly, intently.
“The world goes blur for children because it’s the body’s natural defence mechanism.”
That caught me by surprise.
“Wait what? Defence mechanism? How is eye damage a defence mechanism. We need our sight to see the world and do things! It’s even worse if our image goes blurry!”
“It’s not about defending your physical being from what the world has to throw at you. It’s about defending your soul,”
“I don’t get it,”
“The world is full of terrible things. Wars, famine, disease, corruption, lies, murders, bloodshed. The world of men has spiraled into a terrible darkness, slowly but surely. Children are the pure souls brought into this world. They are like white sheets of paper, a vat of milk…pure and untainted by the colours of dirt and impurities.
The eyes are a divine gift that was given to us to see the world in its beauty. Natural beauty that nature provides us. A world with natural terrors such as predators and weather shows us not dangers, but the beautiful creations of divinity. Of how creative divinity can be.
The paradox of life is something of an art. To create another side of a coin, to create the opposite of what is otherwise perfection. Something so perfect can have its other side. Nothing can create such a thing except divinity, powers that mere mortals can’t begin to fathom.
But now, the world is plagued with man-made horrors. Men are beings that started out as yet another perfect creation in the mix of perfections. But they were tempted to be divine when it is beyond their capacity. They sully and pervert the meaning of divinity, creating illusions of the truth.
Take immortality for example. Immortality isn’t about living forever in a physical sense. Everything material will come and go. It is a relationship with Mother Time. She dances with us, and when the music stops, the dance stops as well. It’s the turn for the next dancer to come onto the stage. But we try to seek a fountain of youth, to try and live forever. And perversion of the natural order of things has brought forth more destruction, and steered us even further from the truth.”
“So what exactly is immortality then?”
“It’s legacy and memory. That’s why you have the ability to reproduce, to teach your next of kin what you know. It’s to continue on the mission or quest you have embarked upon. You pass away, but the legacy lives on. That’s immortality,”
“You mention truth. What do you mean by truth?”
“Truth is simply what it is. No illusions or lies but the very nature of things. As I mentioned, the age of wearing glasses these days is getting younger because the human body is reacting naturally to the coming of events in the world. The unnatural horrors of men.
The body is putting up a mechanism to try and steer the innocent souls away from the illusions of the material world. It’s like a mother shielding a child from a terrible sight.
‘Don’t see such a terrible thing! Children shouldn’t watch it!'”
“Then how do we see if our world turns blur?”
“You see with the eye of your heart and mind. As blind people are in complete darkness, their world is perceived through hearing. It is a different world altogether,”
“But they may hear lies,”
“Yes true. Lies do exist in sound as well as sight. But sight is more important.
You have heard the phrase ‘the eyes are windows to the soul’?
That is literally true. Through the eyes you can peer into a person’s soul given the right ability, training or divine gift.
Blurring of the sight is like drawing a curtain to a window. It’s to prevent a sight from entering into what matters the most, which is your soul. It’s closing the window and entrance to the inner sanctum of your being. Natural body reaction.”
“Wow…never thought of it that way,”
“The world today is full of illusions. Many material illusions that drive us in the wrong direction. People fight for power over land that is in reality, just dirt and grass and stones.
People struggle for money that is just printed processed paper that was taken from trees felled, causing damage to nature.
People fight for egos and pride, both of which serve no purpose but to polish a so-called ‘image’ that can’t even be seen. What you see in a person is just a human being standing before you. This ‘image’ is just a figment of your imagination.”
“Image is important. It’s to bolster your confidence!”
“Confidence you say? Confidence that you actually inherently had when you were brought into this world?
Every person born has an innate potential and ability that is unique to them. Isn’t that enough for confidence? That you are special in your own way?
The problem lies in the illusion you call society. Society’s expectations. Society has created this little board game of pieces that dictate what you should be, ought to be and such.
No two people are the same. To lump them into one template of an ‘ideal’ individual is like you lumping two pieces of different coloured clay and try to mould them into one single colour.
In the end, the colour that stands out is the colour belonging to the clay that managed to ‘consume’ the other by overpowering it and wrapping around it, erasing its existance from the naked eye.
But the truth is, the other clay is always there. It never disappeared. And yet we fall prey to such deceptions.
Society is just an abstract concept created by men, the ideals and such created by those in power who wish to stay in power. But what is power? The ability to step over another individual and claim dominance? Are you really that powerful?
Or let’s put it this way.
Do you need to be that powerful?”
It was really a surprise, to be washed over with the tide of a profound answer to our world today. I was amazed and lost for words. The world that I thought I knew, thought I had a grasp of, now seemed so alien. Where, or should I say, what have I been living in?
“You know, I’m amazed. What turned out to be a simple point in direction by another lone person in the previous camp I was in turned into a very amazing revelation!”
“There are no coincidences. Things happen for a reason. You are part of an intricate device. That is the perfection of the natural world. All the gears and pieces are interconnected to each other. You are here at this point in time. Your trip is not a coincidence nor is your destination of arrival to this country.
Mother Time felt it right for you to learn something. You have the capability to take in what was given to you, therefore you were led here. The divines don’t give you what you cannot handle.”
“So I’m told this truth. But why me? Is has to be more than just because I’m deemed ready right?”
“For one, it’s because you are ready. Secondly, you have a mission to leave a legacy to continue the work to restore the damage done by our kind.
We must be responsible for our actions. Not us as individuals but us as humans. Humans are one. We are all connected. We must fix what has been done wrong.”
“I see. Just one question. I’m curious.”
“Go ahead,”
“May I ask, why do you wear a blindfold? I don’t mean to be rude but…did the world damage your eyesight so bad that you know…you went blind?”
“No offence taken. And no. I can see actually. My eyes are fine…”
She removed her blindfold to reveal beautiful emerald eyes. She then covered them again.
“But I choose not to. Because what I don’t want to see is an illusion.”
I blinked. This trip was quite an amazing one. I couldn’t look at my living world the same again.
From then on, I would start to live my life with a whole new perspective and insight. To see beyond the veil of illusions drawn before my eyes.
Have you seen past the illusions in your life?
Authors notes :
This story was inspired by a thought I had. As I was driving today on the road I passed by a car containing a family. I noticed the daughter in the car was a little girl wearing spectacles.
It got me thinking on the number of children these days who are starting to wear glasses at such a young age.
As storytellers we tend to ask “What if?”
And my mind went into the works.
Hope you enjoyed this take of imagination and idea. Perhaps there is some truth in it after all. 😉
HavenTales 