“Make the heart of this people dull,

And their ears heavy,

And shut their eyes;

Lest they see with their eyes,

And hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart,

And return and be healed.”

Isaiah 6:10

Part 1:

It was one of those bright days where you couldn't see the sun. The sun shone onto the thick canopy of clouds that prevented any direct light from grazing the ground. Each passing minute was the moment before a rain that never arrived. This was the type of weather that gives headaches and could quickly turn a good day sour. On these days the world is pressed upon from above.

Within the shelter of a home the oppression isn't diminished. Every window glows with dead grey light. There's no distinction between light and shadow, everything blurs together in an ugly glow. A living room is lit, but not bright. Oranges take on shades of rust and even the healthiest plant takes on a sickly pale. The life was drained from the world, from this very room, but strangely at the center the seated woman appeared fully alive.

“Who are you? Who are you really?”

Her voice dripped with honey and smelled of lilacs. She was stylishly dressed yet comfortable, a warm lavender sweatshirt and jeans, hair pulled up into a messy bun. She shifted in her seat, but did not lose focus on her subject. Eyes the color of the forest floor, compassionately held her beloved.

His face was like that of a mannequin, smooth and flat. Skin pulled taught over a featureless skull. Standing he could have been no taller than 2’5”. But now he was curled on a crimson cushion blankly staring back at the woman. His body convulsed and a deep cracking voice rattled out of his shaking body.

“i want to be all that you ever wanted and desired. i’ll form myself into whatever you need. i love you”

When standing his pale arms hung down to his knees, but now the two twig-like appendages wrapped in nearly translucent skin coiled around his folded legs. His legs, the perfect match to his arms, met a small pudgy torso, full, lumped, and wrinkled.

She looked at him with adoration. Staring at the place a few feet higher than the top of his head where she saw his pale blue eyes shaded by golden sun bleached hair.

“But I don’t want you to be someone else I want to know *you*. Who is truly there?”

Tears soaked through skin like sweat where eyes would have been. Beading drops grew and gathered into streams across the pallid mask.

Just visible within the flesh were veins, pushing and pulling cortisol to and from a heart too small, too hardened, too softened, and too large.

"i don't have your answer, i don't know who it is that you're looking for."

"You, I want to know you!"

She flashed another stunning and innocent smile.

"i don't know who that is, honest."

"Let's find out, let's go on that journey together and find out who you are, who we are, together."

"i can become anything you want, the man you always deserved. i can go to the gym and train and become the superhero to save you. Or a classy gentleman to sweep you off your feet. Or a moody artist that you can save. i can lead or follow, whatever you want, i can do it"

She frowned.

"I don't want that."

"But that-- that's all i have."

"I don't want any of that if it isn't you."

"i still don't know what that is though"

"That's what I was saying, lets find out. It's not about what I want, I already have that, I want us to find you. I want to know *you*."

"i'm worried about what you're going to find."

Another smile curled the edge of her lip. At first she suppressed the laugh but it quickly burst out.

"We've been married for a years now and been together longer than that, I know you at least that much. There is nothing about you that could keep me away from you."

"i know"

"No, look at me!"

She caught his eyes and did not let go.

"There is nothing you could show me that would shock me in the least. I am here waiting for you to open. I won't ever force you, I couldn't do it if I wanted to. But I want to know you, every piece, even the parts you think are broken."

"i trust you, i trust that you won't leave, but..."

His voice sputtered and ceased. The spindly arms constricted more tightly around his withdrawn body, the thin veins and muscles tightened beneath the milky white skin. She reached for his knee, and her ringed hand rested on the flickering projection.

"But what?"

"But what if i want to leave myself?"

It felt like time stopped and the whole room flexed in and out as if it were breathing.

"What if i find something that pushes me away? What if i become stuck here, alone in my own head? Sometimes its just easier not to know, the little bit i've gotten to know him, i've been disappointed."

Tears started falling from her eyes, her hand moved in hesitant slow circles on the illusory knee.

"I don't know if it's fair to say, but I think I know a bit more of him than you do, and believe me, you won't be disappointed."

She leaned in and slyly smiled as if she were letting the thing on a little secret. Already basking in the joke she has cooking in the moment.

"If you ask me, he's a bit of a fixer-upper, but you won't believe the bargain I got him for."

A small chuckle vibrated under the stretched smooth face. He slowly unrolled and hugged her.

"i have to go"

"I know, I love you"

"i love you too"

Part 2:

He laid flat on expensive couch, lit by a flickering fireplace. The small, pale, faceless thing was dwarfed by cushioning that threatened to swallow him. The upholstery of said couch was, maroon, velvet, and slightly scented by a floral perfume, all of which mounted on mahogany legs. The furniture served as a natural extension of that man who sat at the desk, the doctor with his suit and pipe full of fragrant tobacco that evoked the essence of sweet burlap and corduroy.

A white beard brushed the doctor’s chin, and was shadowed by a thick mustache that hid his thin lips. Small serious eyes peered through thin circular glasses. Every button of his attire, in place, and not one out of place thread, spot of lint, or hair, blemished his perfect suit. He cleared his throat and began.

“Hmmm... Is that really how it happened?”

“i- i think so?”

The doctor stood from his mahogany chair and In absence of mind he wiped dust off his mahogany desk. He rolled it between his fingers forming a compact ball of filth, and deposited it into the matching mahogany waste bin. A grey film remained on his left thumb and forefinger for the rest of the session.

A grandfather clock towered above the couch. Each second crunching and clicking in the air. Embers crackled in the pipe as the doctor took a long pull, which he spewed in a thin cloud that filled the dimly lit room. While processing for a few moments more, he rubbed his left ear and unknowingly left yet another smudge on his earlobe. Looking to the swirling smoke he began.

"Our perceptions are all we really know. I mean, this is what people often mean when they rehearse the tired mantra that 'perception is reality'. While it is a cliche, it does not diminish the validity of such a phrase."

The small pale thing stared blankly up at the swirling cloud above. Crackling fire, the striking second hand, it appeared to him a storm. A hurricane filled with lightning, sent to rebuke the world of evils. As chief among them, he himself was by no means safe. He shuddered and cringed at the thought.

"... It may be imperfect, but that's the best we have. Ironic that the truth appears to us so close, but we are eons and ages away from assembling a definitive proof of this objectivity. I supposed we must be satiated by the hand of cards we have been dealt."

The doctor paused and giggled to himself, and seemed to expect least chuckle or chortle and at worst a groan, from his captive audience. However, he was met with nothing. He looked down to see the young man staring at the ceiling with dark weary eyes. His muddy brown hair a tangled mess, that reflected the slightest hint of once being blonde. He was not particularly overweight, yet his legs filled his pants and his stomach began to peer over the waistline.

"My boy, are you alright?"

"i feel like i am constantly falling short"

"Well what are you looking for?"

"i want to make someone proud. i want to be seen and liked nonetheless. i want to believe people when they give affirmations and ignore baseless insults. i want to feel like i matter, like i can move the needle on anything. i want to make the right decision and have it feel good."

Three chunky clicks sound from the towering clock.

“Sounds like you’ve got a condition there son”

There was a dim dankness to the room. One got the impression that underneath all the expensive cushions, filigree, and even within the burgundy curtains a mold could grown undetected and unhindered. Maybe sunlight would kill it if any shone through the squalid windows of this upper room.

“I don’t suppose you can get on moping like this, mumbling like Boethius. My boy I will not be your comforting muse, I will be your Lady Wisdom, I will tell you what you need to hear.”

He rubbed his temple with the free hand and whispered, “though it does feel as I am slowly meeting his end.” In an absence of mind he traced lines about his head and a chill ran through his limbs and touched his stomach, squeezing at the horrific thought. He interrupted the disquieting image as quickly as it had come.

"How about you take up a hobby or something, or what about one of those social clubs. 'My I remember those days fondly..."

A mindless stream of words bumbled and bounced softly around the room. The doctor dug deep to extract golden nuggets of wisdom, something that would touch the heart, soul, and mind of this lost young man. Yet all the gold he could find had long lost its luster. These rusted pebbles pattered on the floor, while the patient unmoving stared catatonic at the tiled ceiling.

"You know what you need? A bit of grit, a bit of that uncaring confidence to do what you think is right and to not give a damn what anyone thinks. By the time I was your age I had marched in DC with Dr. King, but what has your generation done, what have you fought for? Didn't we teach you better? To tear down the man a bit? To shake him right?"

He impotently balled his free fist and shook it toward the sky.

"I worry about where you all are going. We won't be here forever to watch over things for you. Eventually you are going to have to hold down the fort and gloriously defend it from the creeping threat of Fascism and Communism that has sought to desecrate our mighty tower, our city on a hill."

"i don't know if i am up for such a task. The world seems to swing between extremes of meaninglessness and malice. What's the point to all of this, every system crafted in the likeness of the Sisyphean prison."

He took another puff and blew the thin stream of smoke, feeding the dark growing cloud.

"Sometimes you have to buckle down and just take the bull by the horns. Not because you would like to, and not for a greater purpose, but because taking the bull by the horns is what you have to do. It's what your grandfather did, it's what his father did, and it is what your father did. Sometimes that's just how the world works."

The smooth face of the reclined figure wrinkled in frustration. The invisible brow furrowed and the slightest hint of pink cortisol colored his cheeks.

"But they all had something that we don't have. Back then what we needed didn't come easy, but those ancestors really made something worth fighting for. But when i read the history books and i mean really read them, i see each and every generation getting a bit more avarice."

"Avarice? Doesn't that seem a bit extreme? Are you not grateful for the world you live in and the great inheritance you have been graced with?"

"i am, but inheritance does not come without a price. Debts don't just fall away, someone eventually has to make things right. But in regards to what i was saying, initially, it started as keeping everything to oneself, never contributing the common good, and making sure that your family had it best. However, it didn't stop there. Soon the institutions were questioned, reasonably and unreasonably. The temples were robbed of gems and gold, cultic art reduced to formless ingots, square and compact."

A voluminous grey eyebrow rose reflexively to the demeaning, malformed, and stillborn, history lesson from a boy old enough to be the grandson he never had. Yet he allowed the young man to continue,

"Next came the gold leaf off the walls, and the paintings rolled and shipped to whomever wanted the backward fetish to hang in their mausoleum dedicated to the old. Then came the statues, each smashed one after the next. Some smashed out of spite for the backward peoples from before and the others just for the marble. The gutted building soon became a temple to the new, before temples went fully out of fashion. Then it was transformed into a shopping mall, until all the shopping moved online. Now the walls lie empty and the town square is silent. The bell tower has long rusted and what once was the heart of a town has now caved in with no one to notice."

The passion in his voice reached a height that the doctor had never heard. The doctor, insulted, indignant, and red in the face, sharply interjected, "Have you had enough?!"

In a small sad voice, the thing on the couch asked, "May I please finish what I was saying, I won't be long."

The doctor sighed a hot breath, and relented to the request, "I suppose so."

The young man began to speak once again, but at a low embarrassed rumble that forced the doctor to lean in *just* a bit closer in order to hear.

"But all had moved to the city, and no one seemed to mind. Each and every one, rich and fat on the ill-gotten spoils. Then a messenger arrived and appeared before the crowd asking, 'Where has the temple gone?'. 'We have taken everything from our temple and it is no more' the people responded. 'We have taken the treasures and left all else in the rubble.' Then the Messenger turned to them and proclaimed, 'Hear what I have to say, what you have taken from Me will not last. The time will come where all will be consumed and rot away. Nothing will remain. Your descendants, your own flesh and blood, will too be consumed, and will be lost like My great wealth.' And the crowd replied, 'What you speak is good! At least there will be peace and prosperity in our lifetime.'"

The crackling fire broke another log and the two halves shifted the living flame.

"My generation is among those descendants. Chewing on the last of the bones, boiling them for all their worth, hoping for some forgotten marrow. -- i am thankful for what inheritance i was given. But i'm afraid that there is nothing left for those who come next, i don't know what to give them, and respectfully i know you don't either."

A heat rose once more to the doctor’s wrinkled cheeks, a fist curled in a pocket, and teeth clenched. Yet after a few echoing seconds his sense returned and he noted, “My boy I’ve never heard you speak this way. I mean no disrespect, but I haven’t heard your passion ever like this. In my business we would say that you are on the verge of a breakthrough. The mask, the shadow is drawn away and you can face your full self, even the part you don’t wish to acknowledge. It’s a fantastic moment, like a new life. I envy you, you know? As an elder I am all that I will be, but you, you have so much potential. Your youthful confusion will fall away and you will see things as they are, it’s the natural pace of these things. What do you make of these thoughts of *mine*?”

The thing lying on maroon velvet made no acknowledgment. There is total resignation in the upward stare at the stars just beyond the ceiling.

“That introspection stuff scares me. If i sit still too long i’m afraid of what i’m going to feel.”

“What do you feel? What do you hear when everything else is quiet.”

"i am desperate to find something. i feel like something is desperately missing. It's as if i suddenly awoke and instantly forgot a dream. Like i looked in the mirror and forgot what i looked like. i've been looking everywhere school, politics, technology, and the economy, and i can't seem to find what i need. And then i remembered going to church with my grandmother, i'm desperate now."

"You never struck me as one of those that would be wrapped up in the religious in this day and age. The studies I've read show that it does wonders for the weak-willed, those that need something to hold onto. I've always thought you were greater than that, a realist, a man of science. Each day the church reveals it's fangs, each pointed at whom they are tasked to protect. The rich sit atop as the poor, and the marginalized are bled dry and fleeced for all they own."

"i know. You remind me well why i never went back there. But that seals it for me, i have no hope. The church is grifting, schools self perpetuate at the cost of student lives, politics goes round and round without end spiraling out of control until someone inevitably answers in violence, technology drains our humanity away drop by drop. And the economy, good or bad means little. Who cares if I can afford Netflix or not, none of this matters."

One last crunching second struck. A tune began to play, the melodious announcement of the top of the hour, followed by six ringing chimes that filled and reverberated through the room.

"I'm sorry to say that's our time. As always, it has been a pleasure."

The pale head nodded solemnly in response. The small form gathered and plopped off the couch and silently exited the office, as a voice called after him.

"Close the door on your way out, if you please."

Part 3:

The pale one stumbled, tumbled down sidewalk blocks cautiously avoiding the cracks, a standing invitation for misfortune. He hated walking in the city. He never knew where to look. It was not home, not safe. Every fifth street a different man was breaking down. Drugs mixed with whatever ailed the man's mind and he screamed at everyone that he could catch in his eyes.

The odd stranger was no different, an anger thick and boiling rested just beneath the surface of a tissue paper calm. The slightest jostle or stare was enough to start the fission. Soon the whole street would be in full meltdown and hot hatred would flow like tar out of every mouth. Mothers would hide their children in fear ducking into retail stores for safety behind glass doors.

There really isn't a place to hide here, and the fear of contact is infectious. The result is an immense pressure to compress oneself into the smallest shape one can hold. To be ever aware of one's surroundings so that there is never any friction. To be like ice on sandpaper, skating by as well as one can, and escaping before too much material is eaten away.

Today was a good day so far, he walked suppressing his presence, curling onto himself. He practiced lifting and placing his feet in such a way to eliminate any noise at all, a futile attempt to disappear completely, to live like a ghost.

The brush of a passing shoulder startled the little pallid creature. He looked up in a start, and threw his head downward once more. He held his arms in close and turned his body yet more inward. A careful eye watched the ground in front and behind him to make sure it didn't happen again. Today was a good day.

Then there was a bump, full contact shoulder to shoulder. The force spun him around. He spew a reflexive apology and began to pick up his pace once more. He was not interested in hashing out someone else's bad day. Now he stared at the ground with unflinching attention, counting crosswalk lines and walking on the edge closest to the street. Legs passed in and out of his periphery along with the odd dog and man curled on the ground.

Then everything stopped. Two strong hands held his arms. And an unremarkable stranger stood before him. He was neither clean nor dirty, though his hair was unkempt. His clothes hung loose on his body, but were held in place by a cross-body bag. The unknown man stared into the empty face, with a look drenched in an equal share of conviction and compassion. One eye intense and sharp, like it saw through the world itself. The other soft and gracious, within was a cool spring, a grandmother's soft hand.

The two stood and stared. The faceless form trembled. A spotlight shown directly on his hiding place. The hot light made his face go flush. Had he been found out? Indeed, he was seen for the fraud he was, the changeling had been found out. But wasn't that what he really wanted? Could he stand to be locked away any longer?

The two eyed man did not avert his gaze. Those eyes! How the faceless boy wished he could at least have one for himself. He had never truly seen, not like all the others and most certainly not like the man before him. As if in answer to this thought there was a jolt in the air, as the two eyed man spoke. The words flowed like none other, clear, quiet, and booming.

"Ask for anything you want and I will give it to you."

Stick arms rose to cover the shame of his exposed face. The decisive moment felt too much, how could he speak in such a presence. Shrinking down he knelt on thin legs and wrapped himself up.

"Why are you hiding?"

"i didn't want you to see me naked."

"Who told you, you were naked?"

Courage began to build once more and he had yet to decide what to ask for. But then he trusted.

"i want to see"

The two eyed man nodded. He knelt down without taking his eyes off the small creature. Carefully he moved the delicate arms aside and exposed the pallid mask once more. He placed his left thumb into his own mouth and wiped it horizontally across the pale smooth face.

The boy now with two eyes turned and rubbed his vision clear. Massive obelisks pressed up against each other. Each etched with hieroglyphics describing events far too recent to be forgotten. Along the sidewalk were crowds of moving trees some green and fruiting others decaying and desiccated. A figure walked among the trees, arrayed in a cap and sandals with matching sets of wings. The figure danced touching the trunks in absence of mind and struck at the branches with a long blade of grass. An improvised hum never ceased from his mouth as he tumbled and frolicked through the swarming forest.

And then he turned and noticed the boy with two eyes staring. For a beat they stood locked on one another frozen, some secret had been stumbled upon. Then the corner of the winged man's mouth began to raise into the sly smirk of a schoolboy and wink flashed in the stillness, and then he moved once more on his merry way.

After watching the grinning man pass beyond view, the new eyes caught the sight of yet another man just within the obsidian surface of the nearest spire. He mirrored each movement of the young man in perfect union. The realization that this was himself chilled his very soul. A whole man stared back, complete with full limbs, a real man. Relief was then followed by a slow breaking of the heart. The man he saw before him was injured. Small scars peppered his body, but this paled in comparison to the deep wound through the left ribs. A spiderweb of dark veins surrounded a penetrating wound, oozing with black tar discharge.

He looked down to confirm and was met with the aching reality under his nose. The hemorrhaged flesh was soft, sticky to the touch. His fingers explored between exposed and splintered ribs. A chill froze his spine when half his hand entered his torso with no indication of reaching the end of the cavernous wound. Tears fell, scantly at first and then after a moment of shaking they began to pour out like an offering onto the ground. Cathartic warmth radiated and sealed the fresh saltwater fount.

The new eyes were wiped once more in perplexity at all they had seen. They focused once more on the obelisks that grew like tendrils reaching for an unreachable heaven. And beyond the scant clouds above were seated the hosts of heaven. The sky was torn in twain and the day met the night and a face formed above, incomprehensible in scale. The moon and sun as two blazing eyes seated in the flesh of blue and black twilight.

When the lips of the heavens opened, the sidewalk rattled and words were too loud and slow to comprehend. Lightning lit every shadow flat and waters rose and covered the ground, swirling, stirring, filling the street and sidewalk. The one with new sight curled into the shallow pool overcome with sheer terror. All was darkness within closed eyelids.

Then a hand touched the space between the shoulder blades. And then peace calmed the raging storm and the ground dried below. He look up at the peaceful presence and saw the stranger once more, now transfigured before him. He stood as a bright light. A white mane flowed from his head and face, his left eye shone as the sun and the right lit as the moon.

“Do not be afraid”

His other hand reached for the young man’s face and swept it across his sight once more. The world spun back to as it was meant to be seen. But if he tilted his head and caught the right light he could get a glimpse of what he had seen before. The stranger held his shoulders and looked as he did before but a glow shone around his head and those eyes kept a celestial shine.

“Go home to your wife and don’t stop for anything. Do not divert to the right or left.”

He lifted up up the newborn man onto restored legs. He held his beloved close and anointed his forehead with fiery lips. Then he let go and walked away disappearing into the crowd.

These new hands no longer shook and the world no longer seemed dreadful. A gentle rain fell like mist. Bitterness was just another flavor and made life taste as it should, rounded complete and pointed toward something on the horizon.

He didn’t wait long, and gathered himself for the road home. He stored these things in his heart and started northward to show his love his new eyes.

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

-1 Corinthians 13:12

A Licensed Sound was used in the audio version of this Story:
2019-05-11 binaual ambiance1 3o.flac by ayamahambho -- https://freesound.org/s/469576/ -- License: Attribution 4.0