Member-only story
The Last Farewell
We leave to stay alive.
I lost my sight after the last siege on my home region. How terrifying it was, waking up to a shroud of darkness, no longer able to sense much beyond sound and touch. I cried out, certain I was locked in one of the circles of hell I’d once read about, and someone grabbed my hand.
“Antony,” I heard my mother say, her voice trembling as if it were hard for her to speak. “Oh, Antony, I’m so glad. So, so glad.”
“I can’t see you,” I said, panic rising with each moment I realized the stark blackness was permanent. “Maman, why can’t I see you?”
“Shh, shh, you’ll be okay,” Maman said. “You’re alive, Antony. You’re alive.”
But that wasn’t enough. As soon as I was able to walk, we left the hospital — the one safe zone in a deteriorating city. The ongoing conflicts made it so my mother and I couldn’t go back to our old home, but at least she had ensured our cat, Little Boots, came with us in our departure as we took a train out west. Even though I couldn’t see Boots, just holding her brought me a calm I hadn’t felt in the days since our lives had been upended.
I don’t know how many pastures we passed — one of the blessings was that I couldn’t see how the war had torn them apart — but I knew my mother was trying to distract me when she started humming an old…
