Itch

Wake up. It’s itching again. Scratch it. It’s swollen up already. Breathe slower. Your hair is wet, slick with sweat. Breathe slower. Keep your heart rate down. Do not panic. Scratch it.

It’s just an itch. Just an itch. It’s stayed with you for a few months now: red with scratch marks, swollen now, bruised. But it’s still just an itch.

You took it to a doctor, I believe? I don’t think you even remember. I was with you then. I’ve been with you for a few months now. But you don’t look at me. You just keep looking at that goddamn itch all the time, scratching.

Scratch. Scratch. Claw it out, come on. Rid yourself of that goddamn itch, so you can finally look at me. The doctor said it was a mosquito bite. The doctor talked loudly, and sharply. You didn’t go back again. What if you went back, and he looked inside your brain and found out about us? About me?

No.

You began worrying that the truth was printed on the back of your iris, and if someone was to look too closely into your eyes, they would read the truth about yours and mine dead friendship.

Look at me once. No, you won’t. You won’t even look at your itch. Or at anything. You blindfolded yourself because of your printed iris. It was either that, or cutting your eyes out, but you weren’t ready for that yet. You were still sane. The itch was still an itch, the blindfold still a blindfold.

Now, I doubt you remember anything at all. But I do.

Soon, as the days went by, the itch got worse. I tried to help you, I really did. I tapped for hours on your shoulders, trying to get you to notice me, or to stop, but you kept itching furiously, nay, feverishly. Your eyes were two black holes, it was so scary to look but I couldn’t look away. No one else could see, of course. But I could.

Scratch. Scratch. Now you look around in your own imposed darkness for the itch. You don’t have to, you can feel the bulbous hard lump on your leg. You tear into it, scratching hard. You haven’t slept for days, the itch wakes you up every half hour.

This time I nudge you a little, and you dig in harder, tearing into flesh with your jagged broken nails. In your haste, your blindfold gets knocked off your eyes, and you see me, finally, in the pale lamplight. But you look through me yet again, just like that fateful night. You’re three-fingers deep inside your bloody leg, still scratching out what you made those months ago.

You ran. You saw me, dying. I saw you. I called out. You ran. Breathlessly ran.

Breathless again, you scratch. Eyes wide open, blackholes. Shivering, sweating hands. Feverish. You pull out your pocket-knife, and start cutting your itch out. I try to stop you. You ran. I died. You raise the blade high. That godforsaken itch! It’s itched since you ran, and I followed you. I try to stop you again.

I shout in your ear. You shiver, but you don’t hear me. I watch, eyes wide open, helpless, as you bring the knife down. Again. Again.

Your eyes bleed, but you keep going, feeling no pain, not slowing down, not waiting for breath, or for a sigh. You keep going, like a machine, like a fever. Like an itch that doesn’t die. I just sit there now, paler than ever, exhausted.

Stab. Stab. You ran. And I forgave you. But you never saw me, so you don’t know. If you did, perhaps you’d stop. Perhaps you’d not scratch. Perhaps you’d see. Perhaps you’d stop. But you didn’t, so you don’t.

Sighing heavily, soaking in the pool of your own blood, you push the blade away from you, dead-tired.

My god.

I take your silhouette in. Bending ever so slightly, almost shrinking into the blood. Full of cold, damp, sweat, you breathe in deeply. Your form rises, then falls further with every breath. You seem to be fading. You look blankly ahead of you, glad. What are you glad of? What do your piercing eyes see? Everything. Everything! The itch is gone, like an insect crawling under your skin, you’ve cut it open and thrown it out. A lump of flesh still sticks to your left hand. You wriggle it free. There is a satisfaction in your face, which unnerves me so. If I stared into your eyes too long, I’d be trapped in the hypnotic sway of the pupils. I’d be trapped forever.

You turn to me, ever so slow. Your black-hole eyes pierce into me, going straight through me into the void right behind me from where nothing ever escapes. I feel your pain, although I don’t know how. You smile. What do you smile at? Dear lord. You smile at me. You see me.

As you laugh a high-pitched, hyena-like laugh of the one at the end of their rope, my breath tastes like muck. The joke was on me the whole time. You saw me that day. It was I who didn’t see you.