Barnabas Oral's Sightless Game

He plays throughout the house at night a braille touch for his lack of sight and dreams of all the crippled things with broken legs and shattered wings. The bandage on his wounded eyes will be there ‘til the day he dies and keep him in a darkened place with just a wet grin on his face. The attic room that he called home was locked up tight, so he didn’t roam but now that he has picked the locks he’s lurking in his stinking socks. ‘Twas Aunty Mae that shut him away to teach the evil boy just how to pray, but he only tortured rodents and flies and used a pencil to gouge out his eyes. So now he stumbles down the hall and drags his nails across the wall to find old Mae and very soon play Blind Man’s Buff by the dying moon. He gently opens her bedroom door and listens to her gurgling snore then lumbers towards her little bed and strokes the grey hairs on her head. With butterknife clutched hard in hand it’s all unfolding as he planned and with his blunted blade held high he slams it into her left eye. When old Mae shrieks and writhes in pain he brings the curved blade down again and opens up her right eyeball as blood sprays on her floral shawl. Barnabas smiles and deeply mumbles as through his pockets he gently fumbles and produces a bandage stained and old to fashion for her a new blindfold. He wraps it round her head quite neatly and tops it off with a bow tied sweetly which keeps it tight and keeps it close while tears of blood drip from her nose. Aunty Mae is dragged up from her bed, spun three times and then stopped dead to stand alone in the middle of the room while Barnabas hides, concealed in gloom. ‘Oh, Mae my sweet just listen to me, now we’re both blind, as blind as can be and the game is now even and honest and fair so, follow my voice but be sure to take care’. With whimpers and cries she limps in a swoon as Barnabas whispers and warbles a tune that lures the old woman out heel by toe into suffering, peril, and shadows of woe. Her arms they flail, her hands they clutch while she blunders about using only her touch, yet Barnabas stands only just out of reach and leers as he thinks of the game he will teach. She yelps and swipes at the sound of his song but Barnabas dodges and lunges head long out of her path as she tumbles and trips and falls to the floor breaking both of her hips. With grace and care Mae is pulled to her feet, embraced by her nephew with arms bittersweet then violently swung by her grand puppet master and waltzed round the room going faster and faster. They crash into walls and topple the chairs, shatter the windows, knock a vase down the stairs, but just as young Barnabas cooks further plans poor Aunt Mae’s body goes limp in his hands. ‘Oh Mae, darling Mae we’ll try that once more and play Blind Man’s Buff and dance ‘till we’re sore. we’ll bleed and we’ll laugh, and we’ll laugh, and we’ll bleed and in darkness you’ll follow, and I’ll surely lead’. So, all through the night they danced and played and as the sun rose, they both gently swayed to a song that he heard only inside his head as he cradled his aunt who was broken and dead.