Prose~Coveting Blindness~AF~16

I found her in the kitchen, doing dishes and listening to some old black lady sing about wanting to be blind on repeat.  She had tears in her eyes.  I had never seen my jolly little curly headed roommate cry before.  I didn’t know what to do.  I just stood there for a few seconds and watched her wash dishes.  “What’s wrong Bliss?” 

“I’ll be fine.”  She says.

“Okay.” I sat down for a minute, because you can’t really give a crying woman a hug while she’s frantically cleaning. But I couldn't just sit there so I got up abruptly.  “I’m going to the store.”  I realize that this wasn’t the time to go to the store, but my thought process was, Ice cream fixes everything.  I got chocolate because this seemed like an emergency.

          

  By the time I got back with her ice cream, she had the living room and the kitchen spotless.  I found her in the bathroom scrubbing the tub. “Bliss.  I got you ice cream.  Come sit down, eat some, and talk to me.  This excessive cleaning doesn’t seem to be helping.”

            “No. I’m not done with the bathroom yet.  I still have to finish cleaning the tub, then there is the sink, and the mirrors and the drawers need to be organized and....  I just.  I need everything clean!”

            “It can wait Bliss.  Tell me what’s wrong.”

            “No!”  She snapped.  “I have to clean it.  I needs it to be spotless!” 

            There was a long silence before I spoke, besides the sound of scrubbing and that sad lady singing the song. 

            “Well let me help you.”  I grabbed a disinfectant wipe. 

            “No no no.  You go sit down and watch T.V. in the nice, clean living room.”  She said ripping the wipe out of my hands and shoving me away from the bathroom. 

            So I put the ice cream in the freezer, sat on the couch, and turn on the T.V. like a good girl.  I was starting to think Bliss was catching O.C.D. so I started googling O.C.D. symptoms.  I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t want to leave her to deal on her own, so I just sat there and pretended to be interested in some documentary about cannibals. 

The song she kept replaying over and over again was officially on my nerves.  It was some old black lady whining, I mean uhhh singing about how she would rather go blind than see her significant other leave her.  I looked up the song, I’d Rather Go Blind by Etta James.  The song made me think Guy trouble?  But I knew it wasn’t guy trouble because Bliss didn’t even date.  I don’t even think I have ever heard her say a guy was cute. Maybe she had a crush on someone for like years and he just got married.  I thought up a million different scenarios while she cleaned the bathtub, the toilet, the mirrors, the walls, the floor…. She even took down the shower curtain and scrubbed it too; this made me more nervous than anything.  Who scrubs a shower curtain?

            A couple hours later, she comes out of the bathroom, red face and sweaty, with hair flying everywhere.  She sits down beside me and sobs.  “There is nothing else to clean.”

            I got up, got two bowls of ice cream, sat back down and handed one to her.  “Bliss.  What are you trying to scrub away?”

            “Dad’s blood.”  She says.

            I was quiet, so she could explain.

            “I dropped by today and he was…he was….  He shot himself.”

            I tried to pull her close to comfort her, but she just sat stiff.  She hadn’t touched the ice cream, but her eyes shifted back and forth between it and the floor.  After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, she slowly poured the ice cream on the floor and set the bowl and spoon neatly next to it.  She pulled her knees up to her chest and starred at the mess.  

By: Acacia Faye