Was Love

Love was once a blind man. The blind man was once an alcoholic, and so intoxicated was he by his drink, that he and some of his friends decided to test his driving skills of the road, with a black and tan in one hand and the clutch in the other. The alcoholic turned around at a small nudge to his shoulder, and beheld a mysterious man on the street. Before he got into the car with his friends, the stranger held up a beer, and said, "For whom do you drink?" The man smashed the beer to the ground, and the shattered glass formed the words: anger.

Two weeks later, the reformed alcoholic walked out of the hospital carrying black flowers in one hand, and clung to his cane with the other. He tapped away down the street, and happened upon a young woman. He gave the flowers to her, and confused, she stumbled to the nearest cemetary to do as he requested. And even though his days became night always, and the sun never rose on his horizon, he decided to forever memorialize his dead friends in ink, even though he would never see the initials. Slowly, he turned around and made his way into a tattoo parlor. He decided to wet the first initial of each of his friends onto the collar bone above his heart. The tattooist looked at him strange, but he did not see the look, for he could not see. And so, a bad deed spelled its way into his skin: obsession, and the letters faded with his age, but he never forgot.

The alcoholic was once a man, until he turned wayward from all his ideals and morals in favor of staring into the bottom of a glass. The man was trapped, and could not escape the daily life around him. One night at a lonely bar, he stared into his drink, and could not stop. He was posessed by some demon of his own mind; he would challenge himself: to see the bottom of that glass...and the next one...until the pile of dirty glasses grew tall. And so the man stared into the bottom of each glass, and through the haze that claimed his mind every night, saw these letters swirling around the left over foam: sadness. The number of drinks increased, and the trapped man turned forever to the bottom of the dark, cool, glass.

The trapped man was once a husband, but only for a short amount of time before angels of death ripped the life out of his darling wife's wide blue eyes, her dying breath not long enough to form three words he wanted to hear. For every day  his wife woul enfold him in her arms, and whisper these same three words before he went to work. But, he was always too preoccupied to give an ear, too worried to care. How he wished he had listened. When her earthly remains scattered far and wide, driven by an ocean breeze, his eyes filled; and the tears that fell to the ground spelled regret.

But now, the blind man walks on, yes, he stands tall; what with his anger, obsession, sadness, and regret like a badge on his sleeve, pattering though the streets: the clack of his cane smart upon the pavement. at night, he sits on a park bench, eyes searching the stars he will never see, and exhales.

A little girl, her parents lost, and she, alone, wanders to his side on the bench, and stares at the blind man with round, wide, eyes. Her brown pigtails bounce on her shoulders, and she says, "Hi."

The blind man jerks his head in her direction, and says rather uneasily, "Hello."

The little girl keeps on staring, and coks her head to the side, "Are you sad?" The blind man sighs again, "I don't think your parents would like it if you were found taling to a murdere."

The little girl bounces up and down, "Parents??"

The blind man stares in her general direction, "Yes, mothers and fathers, you know?"

The little girl stops her bouncing, and frowns, "Yes, the angels said that they would be happier with them, so I let them go."

The blind man falters, "Let...them...go?"

"Yes," the little girl chirps happily, "If they're better off with the angels, then let the angels take care of them!"

The blind man's lips twitch, as if his mouth were about to break into that fobidden expression of happiness.

Worldessly, the little girl reaches up, and hugs him. Startled, he gently hugs her back. The little girl hums "Amazing Grace" under her breath. But, he sings a different tune:

"Oh acceptance...e-e-v'rywhere...let peace...be found...let u-us reach...out with all...our hearts..."

And then, for a small, miniscule second in time, the blind man smiles.