The blind man (An original tale)

He never saw anything. When he was little, his fathers related the events, for less important they could be, because they thought it would help the development of their son. But, his vision deficience hampered the creation of friendships and this made him to learn to live more in his own imagination than in reality. When he was a teenager, his fathers got ill and died during an outbreak that striked the village where they lived. He also got ill, but ended up surviving. With time, consumed everything that was in the house and sold thing after thing to be able to feed himself.

Nowadays, the Blind Man lives begging for coins. The blanket that protects him from the cold stinks awfully for years, his hair resembles those of a witch and the sickness that spared him left stains in his skin. To outsiders, he was transformed into a miscellany of horrors that walks in cold streets, always begging, without seeing. But, he lives within himself. His eyes see what nobody else see. Because of the many misfortunes in life that induced him to a certain isolation, he never had been taken by the social automatism. The Blind Man is constrained to live with open eyes.

He is now remembering to feel the wind. When it rains, he seeks for shelter, when it stops, he pass the hand into the wet things in the street, looking to feel the effect of the water in everything. When it's hot, he focus in absorbing it. When he cries, feels the tear falling and escolts his way through the skin. But all this is already well known by the blind. Since he was a child, he always felt that as much as possible, now he wants more. His soul demands, is in need for it. Wants what is definitely not in the village. Within him, all sensation, for more varied or deep that is, leads to a melancholy almost numbing, but nothing else. The place, however, is surrounded by a forest, although it have a trail to the big city. The problem is obvious: who would help a beggar, alone, blind and stink? Who would grab his hand and help him? It's certain that a good heart or another in the middle of the crowd would provide it, but how to ask something like that to anyone?

He needs to leave and can't bear it anymore. Even with the physical difficulties, the only doubt in his mind is: where to go? There's only one way to the big city, but what makes him curious is the forest. The first could be more of the same, but in a bigger place. In fact, since that need was imposed upon him, the blind always knew that the only exit was the forest. That always was of a frightful truism and the supposed doubt about the fate resided in the choice between fear and conformity. Now he can't bear it, his eyes have already seen too much.

Today is his last night in the village. He will leave tomorrow morning to the forest. The Blind Man, that feels everything, is melancholic and with pain for leaving. Pass the hand in the walls of the houses and lay his feet in the ground to feel the contact with its cold. Hear the last conversations of others and eats the last foods. Feels the tear falling in his face and turns his head to the sky, as if he was seeing the night, while the tear fall through his cheek and jumps off his face, trying to not be separated from the city where it always wanted to be cried. Tomorrow the day will be another and other tears will come. The blind accommodate himself in the cold and sleep on his memories. Inside the houses surrouding him, the residents pass the night thinking that the inconvinient noise is from some animal howling.

The sun rises and the Blind Man, that slept poorly, doesn't want to change his mind. Nothing is more obvious than his journey to the forest. To not call attention, he abandons the village by the trail and, when he hears enough to know that nobody is close, jumps the fence and enters in the middle of the trees, forgoting about any other question the could matter before. Lost himself surrounded by smells, the sensation of step into so much vegetation and the noise of birds in the trees. In the beginning, he had fear of steping into a snake, but that doesn't matter anymore. The blind pass a uncounted time knowing all of that, crying without perceive. It's a new world and, without a shadow of doubt, his place is there. The night come and he doesn't perceive even the cold of the midnight, because he is busy admiring his new and obvious eternal place.

The blind wakes in the forest. He had slept without perceive. A light in the center of darkness of his sight called his attention. In front of him, a fairy.

After a long time, the body of the Blind Man is still rotting, without importancy, in the middle of the trees. He had forgot to eat and drink. His cold face remained smiling until it disapeared. Died slender, smiling, forgotten and with stings in the leg.