Chapter 32: A Tear in the Blind's Bowl

  (The Blind Perspective)

  I was awake, but I refused to acknowledge wakefulness. I wanted to stay drowned in the only melody I had recently known: the calm heartbeats of (Kinami). In that moment, the entire world was reduced to her chest, and the beautiful life beating inside it.

  I had fainted during training and woke up a while ago, but I clung to the warm darkness like a fetus refusing to come out. I touched my face quietly, like someone touching a glass masterpiece, fearing it would break. She said in a voice resembling the babbling of water: "Your eyes are beautiful, Iyasu-kun."

  I replied, my voice still heavy with sleep, burying my face in her clothes that smelled of the forest: "Do blind people have eyes to be beautiful?" I heard the "sound" of her smile as she said: "Of course. You have eyes that resemble the sound of kindness." I said bitterly: "It seems they are ugly, then."

  She laughed lightly and said: "That is because you do not hear them well, just as you do not hear the sound of the sword coming from the right to strike you down." She patted my shoulder, her touch carrying a hidden farewell: "Come on, stand up. I will return to the village, and might be gone for a week. As for you, go and eat well until I return. Do you understand?" "Yes."

  I stood up and began to move. I do not know how much time passed, for the years of the blind are not like the years of the sighted. My only clock is my heartbeats, eagerly awaiting her return. I started walking. Walking, which used to be like treading on thorns, had now become, thanks to her training, as fluid as flowing water. But today...

  my senses betrayed me, because fate wanted to drag the "blind slave" to see his reality with his ears. I got lost. From what I heard in the hollow echoes, it seemed I had accidentally entered the "Cut Garden". The garden whose trees my father cut down to sell and pay the tribute. The sound of the garden was sad, hollow. The wind whistled with no leaves to block it, crashing into dead trunks and moaning. The ground beneath my feet was full of damp sawdust, like the dismembered corpses of wood.

  Then... I heard a sound. The crying of an animal. An innocent (Kappa) frog crying and crying. While it cried, I heard the sound of approaching footsteps. I stopped behind a dead tree trunk. I recognized the footfalls. And I recognized the smell. The smell of cheap incense, old tea, and the smell of "bowing." It is my father. I heard the rustle of his clothes as he sat next to the Kappa. He said nothing at first. I heard the friction of fabric, and a sudden gasp from the frog. He is hugging him. (He is hugging him... he hasn't hugged me like this since the moment I understood my blindness).

  Then my father spoke, in his calm and sad voice, that voice people call "kind": "Inka.. do you know? I have an only child from my loins. (Iyasu). This child.. is my exact opposite." I froze. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. (I am not your opposite... I am also "kind" like you, but I bury my kindness in the mud so I won't be broken). The father continued: "He sees everything I do as wrong." (A frog cries a little and you go to console it... while your son of your own flesh is beaten by servants, crying every day from severe helplessness, and you leave him to the sound of roaring fire... and you say I see you as wrong?). "And I always feel he is angry with me." (I am not angry!!! I hate you... I hate your weakness that made me blind). "Perhaps because his mother died a long time ago, the goodness and tenderness of a mother never reached him." (No... the tenderness of that mother reached me... a real tenderness, better than the "kindness" of a woman whose voice I never heard my entire life). "And he grew up with a heart as hard as stone."

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  I raised my hand to my mouth and bit down hard on my thumb knuckle. I felt the teeth pierce the skin. Physical pain was the only thing stopping me from screaming. (My heart is softer than a hundred of yours... but it is torn apart in the sound of darkness). My father sighed and continued: "But, Inka... that child is not my only son. You are also my child." The air was sucked from my lungs. (If you grant the title of children to everyone you see before you... what is left for the son who carries the sound of your blood? Is love a cheap commodity you distribute to strangers?). "My son, dear to my heart." (You, who they called kind... you granted a frog a title you never granted your legitimate son in your entire life... and do you still think yourself kind?). "And that is why when you do something wrong, I must be harsher on you than anyone else. Because you are my son.. and they are not my sons." (And have you ever been harsh on me? I wish you had been harsh... but you remained silent like a stone idol, leaving me for others to raise me with their cruelty).

  Then I heard a faint sound. The sound of a hand stroking a wet head, the friction of skin against the frog's bowl. It was a tender sound. But... it was not for me. "Inka.. that child in the courtyard lived a harsh life. His words and actions will not change overnight. He will not love or respect me in a moment. He needs time to learn trust." (Every orphan will trust you... every bird will trust you... every frog will see you as an angel... but I wonder, will you ever do something to make me trust you too?). I heard the affectionate smile in his voice: "Even you.. surely you hated me the first time you saw me, and thought I was arrogant, right?" The frog replied in a crying, sincere voice: "No, sir. From the first time I saw you, I thought you were kind." (Did you hear, you who were born from his flesh? They think he is kind from the first glance... I wonder, if I saw you... if I had eyes... would I also think you are kind?). My father laughed lightly and hugged him tightly: "Alright.. thank you, Inka."

  Then his voice turned to a mockery that kills the sound of my heartbeats: "But my son.. next time, even if someone insults me, do not try to defend me with violence. I can defend myself. And also.. you shouldn't trust people so easily. The world is not all like us." (Liar... you cannot defend yourself. You say this because you are afraid. Afraid they will kill whoever defends you and you won't be able to protect them. You are a coward pretending to be wise). "I might be an (Oni) in disguise and not kind, and eat you." (You are an Oni that eats people's souls... wearing the face of a free vixen from a sky cage). The frog laughed: "You, sir, an Oni? I cannot imagine this."

  They kept talking. For long hours. Until night fell, the air grew cold, my limbs went numb from standing, and my hand went numb from biting. I kept listening. Hearing all the conversations I wanted him to have with me. All the tones of embrace I was deprived of. All the faint laughs that were not mine. I didn't want conversations for hours. I didn't want an embrace. I didn't want laughs. I just wanted... the sound of a single smile directed at me. So I could keep it in the sound of eternal blackness I live in.

  Then... the frog slept. Silence prevailed for a moment. A heavy silence in the dead garden. Then I heard it. Tsh. The sound of a small drop falling into water. The sound of a tear... falling from my father's eye, settling into the frog's bowl. A salty, heavy, and sad sound. My voice froze, and blood leaked from my hand that I had bitten. I wonder... have you ever cried over me like this? Or are your tears... forbidden to your son?