Guilt by Ignorance
Those eyes. Those sunken, hungry eyes. They wouldn't leave her. No matter how hard Claron tried, she couldn't escape the eyes of that boy. Everywhere she turned, she saw them as though he were standing right before her, screaming silent accusations and asking heart-wrenchingly muted questions. She was unable to give an answer, staring back as wordlessly as the boy had been.
She had seen him in the market place that morning, sitting on the corner with a small cup in one hand and an old, rusted bell in the other. The bell could hardly make a sound to begin with, and couldn't be heard at all over the din of the market. She could see even from a distance that he was starving. His face was gaunt and his bones poked out from under his skin, and his eyes had sunken in like deep, dry wells.
He had looked at her with those eyes, and she could tell that he did not expect her to give him anything. He had given up. He was just going through the motions now, waiting to die. No hope. No future. All he did now was wait for death as he silently stared at passersby with an empty gaze, silently asking for food so that he might prolong his misery.
She had felt moved by compassion in that moment, thinking that perhaps she might have been able to help. Not only with the food, but also with his lack of hope. She went to a nearby vendor and purchased a small basket full of sweet peas with what little money she carried. Carrying the basket over to the boy, she set it down before him and waited.
She thought she had seen a spark in his eyes, for just a brief moment, when she set the food down before him. He reached out slowly with a dirt-covered hand, seeming uncertain of her offering. She nodded her permission to him, even though his eyes were fixed on the basket.
His hand wrapped around a fistful of the green pods, and he brought them up to his mouth quickly, acting as though he thought he were stealing them rather than receiving a gift. He repeated this process several times, and every time his hand reached a little quicker for the peas. When he had finished, Claron knelt down next to him.
"Would you like to be able to eat like this every day?"
The boy looked up at her, his hungry eyes now glimmering questioningly. He gave no reply, but she hadn't been expecting one. While he had been eating, she had noticed a tattoo on the back of his hand which marked him as a mute.
"Come with me; I know a man who is looking for boys like you to help work in a vineyard. You won't have to work hard, and he feeds his workers well."
She took the boy by the hand and stood him up, slowly leading him toward the vineyard at the edge of the city. The boy stumbled along behind her. She wondered when the last time he had stood up from his seat in the market's corner had been.
After a few minutes of walking, Claron started to hear a rasping sound in the boy's breathing. She stopped and offered him a water skin, which he waved away. The boy bent over and raised his hand to his chest, a look of panic on his face. He looked at her with a frightened plead in his eyes.
Not knowing what else to do, Claron called out for help. She shouted for someone, anyone. A few housewives looked disinterestedly from their house windows, but no one offered any assistance.
The boy's skin was growing red now, and his face looked like it had begun to puff up. He dropped to his knees, and Claron could see tremors running along his body. She knelt down and lifted the boy off the ground. There was a doctor not too far from where they were; perhaps she had time to get him there.
She ran through the streets, struggling not to trip over her long skirt. The boy's breathing was growing weaker, and his face was still swelling. She rushed to the doctor's home as quickly as she could, arriving drenched in sweat and gasping for breath.
It was too late, however. The boy had died while she was carrying him in her arms.