Double-Blind
By: Anita
Zooni preferred lying in the field with her eyes closed. Shutting out the brilliant colours and lights she had only recently become accustomed to. Seeing only the darkness and despair she had somehow grown to love.
For when her eyes had been opened, she had only found a world of pain and hatred. A world that had destroyed the very beat of her heart. A world that had caused her so much pain; she wondered how her friends and family could continue to live with a smile on their faces.
She was miserable and crushed. Rehan, her first and only love, her husband, had been taken from her grasp. She asked for so little in her life, and yet the one thing she had desired was not meant to be hers.
Her parents had been supportive and helpful through her trials. She struggled to keep them happy, to assure them that their only daughter was fine. She ate only because she could not bear the look on their faces when she refused to. The pangs of hunger had long since been overshadowed by despair.
But her parents, try as they might, could not suffer the way she did. They had never even met Rehan. They had never heard his playful couplets, or heard the unbridled joy in his voice when he laughed, they had never felt the warmth of his embrace. They had never heard the love in his voice when he soflty spoke her name.
They did not miss Rehan. No one did. No one except her. And she beared all of the hurt alone.
Returning home was supposed to have been a joyous event. Zooni had missed the smell of her home, the fragrance on the wind. But now, as she looked at the pale blue sky, the beauty of the home she had always known but had never seen eluded her. The peaks and hills spread across the horizon did not envoke awe.
Because he was not there to see it with her.
Yet, slowly, her world was beginning anew. She closed her eyes once more and hesitantly touched her stomach.
She was pregnant. She had not believed it at first. It was almost as if the gods themselves were taunting her. She had lost the love of her life, and yet, in his place she had found a new love altogether. The spirit of Rehan had weaved its way back into her life.
She was unsure if she would be a good mother. The thought scared her more and more each day. But she was certain that she had to try. For the sake of her child. She would give him everything she had left in her soul to give.
Finally, she had found a reason to live again, a reason to struggle and persevere, to smile and laugh. A reason to open her heart once more.
And yet, as she lay with her eyes closed, she silently wished for the days of darkness. The days when her eyes had been blind, but her heart had been full...