It was a cool August night when the light left her eyes.
The trees were still and the crickets hummed along to the toad choir’s tune.
The radio blared as the wheels came to a gently halt and she gazed upon the old farmhouse before her. A solitary window glowed behind the shadowy outline of a rusted tandem bicycle. The inky sky filled in the cracks.
Leaving the shelter of her vehicle, the sound of the car door closing seemed distant as she made her way to the front porch, adorned with warped wicker furniture.
She knew that after tonight her world might never know happiness again. Even now, she felt an overwhelming sense of emptiness; it was as though the electricity behind her irises had been sucked through that golden windowpane, abandoning her without a thought.
And yet, thoughts seemed to be all that remained. They frolicked and festered between her temples as she raised a feeble fist to the door.
She managed two knocks before her eyelids flung themselves together into a tight embrace. She silently prayed to the night that no one would come.
The sound of unsuspecting footsteps grew nearer and her heart pounded in her ears and she suddenly felt three feet tall and her thoughts mutated into questions that she wished she could not answer.
Then she felt the light spill across her feet and opened her own hazel eyes to meet another’s familiar steely pair.
Everything had changed and he was about to see that.