The Blind Beggar: Part XXI

When isolated, there is no limit to where the mind can go.  Many dark places can be visited and known well.  He knew what it was to be ignored and feel he didn’t matter.  Boulos spent much of his life alone where the only conversation he had was with himself.  Having the recent positive attention was sweet nectar but so foreign.

Boulos pondered his present state.  He was a blind man befriended by several strangers and they all collaborated to make his life better.  He appreciated the home and job he had.  It was good to have purpose in his life.  For once, he finally had the smallest sliver of hope that his life had some meaning. 

Nevertheless, it mattered little to him.  Over and over in his mind he had one question.  Why?  Why God would allow Amal to bump into my life if she cannot be part of my life?  Is this not the cruelest of jokes a deity can play on a human?  God dangles love in front of the mortal and keeps it just out of reach.  Like an itch that cannot be scratched, Boulos felt it sheer madness.  It was utter cruelty.  Daiwik once told him the gods smiled on him.  They smiled because they were laughing.  They had laughed at him the whole of his life.

Born with a soft heart, Boulos felt things more deeply than most.  Each setback in life hurt him deeply.  How he wished for human kindness when he became an orphan.  Amal was that touch his wounded heart craved.  As the ever darkening clouds of blindness settled on him, Amal remained the light of his life.  How he cried the evening Amal told him of the day she would marry.  The very words shattered his heart but in his love for her, he could not bear to put any burden upon her.  Therefore, he calmly spoke words of sense and assurance.  It was best for her to marry another.  He lied. 

He spoke truth in that it was good for Amal to have a man who would and could provide a life for her.  Boulos knew we could never do that.  His lie was in appearing to be ok with the thought.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  How Boulos wanted to shower Amal with love.  How he wished he could hold her, touch her, kiss her.  With every fiber of his being he wished the universe had given him a different life. 

The questions he had then returned anew.  Why was he given this life?  Why must he be the one to suffer such anguish?  Sitting on the bed facing the window, he felt the breeze upon his skin.  He noted the cool streaks that ran from his eyes to his lips.  He tasted his tears.  He believed the salty taste to be a reminder he would forever be preserved in a life of brokenness.  Even when things got better, they remained the same.