Sea Green Eyes

         You sat and stared out over the dark auditorium, waiting for the event to start.  After a little while, a single dim spot light illuminated the center of the stage.  A man of average hight and build, stepped out on to the stage.  When he reached his mark, he stood facing the audience.  Now there was something unusual about this man.  It was as if he was shrinking.  Not physically, but spiritually, like the weight of the world was slowly crushing his spirit right there on the stage.  It didn't make any sense to you, but as he talked, you could feel behind his slow deliberate speech and calm exterior there was an emptiness.  The more you focused on him, the more the rest of the universe faded away, until it was just you he was talking to.  As he continued on in his slow, deliberate monotone, you caught sight of his sea green eyes.  But caught is not the right word for it.  It's more like they sucked you in.  Like how a whirlpool draws ships down to their doom.  As you gaze grew more intense, the emptiness in his voice became more and more evident in his eyes.  Those sea green eyes seemed to turn black, as if the fire of his soul had been snuffed out.  The deeper you went down the corridor between his eyes and his soul, you saw that his spirit hadn't just been snuffed out.  It had been cruelly ripped out by some viscous hand and then tortured very slowly, until it could no longer bear the strain and shattered into a million pieces. The nightmare didn't end there thought.  Once his spirit had shattered, his tormentor took the pieces of his soul and one by one repeated the process, delighting in every piece as it's light slowly faded out.  Once every piece of his soul had been extinguished, his tormentor left him.  With no soul, his body would slowly wither and die. 

         As the depth of the tragedy communicated itself to you, you began to feel weak.  The bottomless pit that had once contained a human soul was slow drawing your soul in.  Inviting you to share in that man's doom.  Frantically you fought back, trying to break the hypnotic stare of those sea green eyes.  But try as you may, those deep, sea green eyes and the even deeper black nothingness beyond them would not release you.  In fact the more you struggled, the weaker you became.  In the same way the cold Atlantic sucks the strength from anyone unfortunate enough to be lost in it, the abyss sapped yours.  Then a thought struck you.  This is what the man's captor had wanted.  To so totally obliterate that man's soul as to create a vacuum, so that where ever that man went, utter despair would overcome all he touched.  The plan had worked too because even while you were contemplating this, you soul was slowly fading out.

         The man finished speaking.  The lights came on.  Everyone began to slowly file out.  You looked around.  You noticed the emptiness behind the eyes of the crowded.  Then you got out of your seat, and headed for the nearest exit.