Where are we?” the old man said.
“In a dark wood.”
“Who are you?” said the old man.
“Just … a brother,” said the young man.
“Stop,” the old man said. “Let me look at you.”
“It is dark.”
“And I am blind.
For me it is always dark. I can see with my hands,
if you will allow me.”
“Yes.”
The old man felt first the young man’s wavy hair.
“Please, describe the color of your hair.”
“Have you seen colors?”
“I have never had sight.”
“Then how can I describe colors?”
“I know the cold on my skin of the black, moonless night,” the blind, old man said. “I know the cool, damp of the brown earth. I know the warmth of golden bright sunshine. I know the searing heat of red fire. Which of these is it?”
“My hair is the color of golden bright sunshine.”
The old man ran his fingers over the young man’s face.
“You look like a god, the god Apollo, god of archers, music and dance.”
“My twin brother was compared to a statue of the god Apollo,” the young man said. “My twin brother’s hair was the color of golden sunlight, like mine, but he dyed it the color of cold, black night.”
A woman screamed.
The young man pulled the arm of the old man, and together they made it through the dark wood, in the direction of the scream, to a small log cabin at the shore of a black lake.
The door to the cabin was open, warm yellow light streaming out. Two young women were in the doorway, a blonde standing just inside the cabin, a dark-haired one with both feet outside, leaning forward, straining, but being held back by the blonde woman’s grip around her waist.
Other than the hair color, the two looked so similar that the young man thought they must be sisters.
“What’s the use,” the dark-haired sister said. “I can’t take this anymore.”
With that, she managed to break free from her sister’s grip and ran directly toward the black lake behind the cabin.
When she got to the shore of the lake, without hesitation she threw herself forward into the water, and the lake swallowed her up without even a ripple marring the still, black surface.
The remaining sister’s shoulders slumped.
“I knew it,” she said, speaking to the young man and the old man, apparently unsurprised at seeing strangers. “I knew she would do it. I couldn’t stop her.”
“I’m sorry,” the old blind man. “I have no sight. What did she do?”
“She went into the Lake of the Forgotten,” the blonde woman said. “She couldn’t resist its pull anymore. I don’t know how much longer I can.”
“Was she your sister?” the young man asked, although he felt he already knew the answer.
“Yes, she was my sister.”
“Then I am sorry for your loss,” the young man said.
“And I wish I had come sooner,” the old man said.
“What could you have done?” the remaining sister said, then turned her back on them and went inside the little log cabin, leaving the door open, with the warm, yellow light streaming out into the cold, dark night.
As they entered and closed the door behind them, the old man said: “Describe it to me.”
------The End -----