Eyeless

It was a warm summer day, just like any other, when Aislinn Bates was born. Her eyes, emptiness voids. The skin — normally called eyelids — hung over the dark gaps like curtains that wished never to be opened. Her mother cried out when she received sight of her newborn. “What’s wrong with her?” She had screamed. “Where are her eyes!” It was a genetic mutation. A medical term called anophthalmia — an absence of once, or in some cases, two eyes. Aislinn was one of these cases.

It wasn’t long after her birth that she was put to adoption. More or less, her mother didn’t want here. Maybe, it was the gapless eyes that had done it for the women. Or, possibly, that she had quitted smoking (making her husband do that same) just so she could birth a healthy child. Even that horrible drinking problem she had started in college. Gone. “It was for the baby,” she had claimed. But when she saw Aislinn for the first time, why did that change?

Aislinn’s life from that point on, was a saddening sight (to those who could see). She spent it in an orphanage — Clarity Orphanage — as it was called. There, was where she considered the lowest part of her life. They didn’t treat her any better than the stray cat that fed off them. The nuns — who are always so much as perceived as family to most — weren’t in the slightest to her. They only fed her when needed to, and that thing called “love”, cease to exist. She was a mere blind child, that had no hope in the world; or adoption. So, at the young age of 6, she — Aislinn, ran away.

She was then alone. In some ways, she had always been alone. It was nice. She liked it very much. And if you were to ask her of this time, she would tell you about it, proud as can be. She had found a small corner in an alleyway, just her size, and resided there. Using the things she packed away in her pink Barbie backpack, she survived surprisingly well for her age and blindness.

It was during this time, her life started to look positive. And it was then, a boy — conveniently of the same age — found her, one mid-afternoon, alone in the alley. “You must be cold out here,” he had assumed.

“But it’s summer,” she squeaked back. She couldn’t see him, but he had been smiling. A smile that was quite rare for a boy in his condition. He had been diagnosed with leukemia only a few weeks before.

“But it’s much warmer in my house! Wanna see?” He told her.  Hand and hand, he had led Aislinn to his house. It was the biggest in the neighborhood, but of course, she didn’t see this. And the boy, didn’t ask why she couldn’t see it.

A kind boy, indeed he was.

His parents took her in with full arms, to her thankfulness (and help of the boy’s stubbornness). But they made no plans to file any adoption papers for her. And when the boy passed away, months later, she was on her own once again. His name was Alex.

Aislinn was on the road for almost a month this time. In the cold; winter.

You might be asking at this point: ‘If she is blind, how in the world can this young girl survive this long alone?’ Well, that is something only herself can explain. One can only put it as simple (and understandable) as this: Yes, she may be blind, but that doesn’t mean she cannot see. A talent she had sharpened over time, she had built her own sense of sight without sight itself. It might be something a person with sight couldn’t understand.

She made her way into a forest filled — to her dismay — with snow. She didn’t last long here. Collapsed and tired, she was ready to die. But she was found by someone once again. This time, a middle-aged man, with an accompanied dark beard down to his neck. He saved her, maybe out of pure empathy, but he still saved her. And that was what really mattered.

She ended up spending many years with this man — named Rich — who she considered her father. He grew to love her just like she had to him. Alone in the woods, working on wood all day; it was hard and lonely. She was blessing of company. He didn’t care she was blind. He didn’t care she wasn’t of his own blood. She was Aislinn. And that was enough for him.

For the first time in her life, Aislinn was truly happy. And this time, it wasn’t cut short.

She was grateful.