Through Her Eyes - Intro

She left her diary for me to find. I know for certain now, it wasn’t an accident. What happened to her wasn’t an accident either.

The diary consumed me - day in and day out. It was filled with so much palpable pain, as though each page had an invisible fluid over it and as I read each line the cold fluid slowly leaked off the page onto my finger tips; from my finger tips it crept up my arms and slowly merged into my very being, into my heart. I couldn’t put it down but I began to dread each new line as I turned the pages.

‘Was she telling the truth in this?’ I thought. ‘Was this a novel or a diary?’

I had so many questions. Within the pages of this book was a restless, abused, unloved soul. I didn’t know her, yet somehow she knew me better than anyone. One of her stories, or perhaps one of her memories, stayed with me for weeks after reading it. Particularly the part -

‘... they didn’t know I had really enjoyed being there. They thought they had the power, when really it was me all along. I mean look what I was making them do.’

With no explanation of who ‘they’ were or what ‘they’ were doing which meant my mind was a free to visualise. The images and scenes I saw, I don’t think I created them. I think she did. She was getting inside my mind. Such dark twisted things, surely it had to be her.

‘But would she do that to me?’ I asked myself repeatedly.

Friends and family had started to notice things were different. I had managed to keep the money a secret, but they saw me with the book. It was never out of my sight. So many questions I didn’t want to answer, ‘Where did you get it from?’ ‘Who wrote it?’ ‘Why does it look so old?’. No, they couldn’t find out, she wouldn’t want them to know anything. My mother started calling me a hermit and a recluse and I knew she wanted to take the book away. I could feel when the book was near me, something exuded from from it, her life force - her energy, a burning I could not be without.

It wasn’t anything special to look at, the book. It was plain. The texture on the outside like smooth skin. It looked like any other little black book but the more your eyes danced over it’s edges the more intriguing it became. You might think the deep black almost looks blood red in certain light, and the speckled texture of the skin seems to change and move. The sides were ripped a little, you could see it had been well travelled.

I pause when I think about the first time I saw it, first touched it. When my trembling fingers touched the smooth surface it was like something shifted, the entire universe folded in on itself - time and space all came rushing past me. Tiny fragments flew by the sides of my face and into focus in front of me. But nothing around me changed, everything was the same. I wasn’t sure if I blacked out, it was the same day, same time and place. I was just seeing it with different eyes. Her eyes.

Each page whispered a new story, each had a new odour, a new taste. The next page had a more painful twisted story than the last and it insidiously worked it’s way into my every waking thought. She was there in my dreams too, I never saw her but I felt her. Waking up some nights covered in sweat, I would desperately try to get back to sleep to get back to her. It was her game she was playing, and I was a willing participant. Each move seemed planned like a giant game of chess. I don’t think she meant to hurt me in the end but it was really the only way for her to come through. Albeit I was in love with her so she could have done anything she pleased.

The night she went too far and I realise now how close I was to the end. It would have been over so quickly, but she waited. Waited for the right time. Right when I was most fragile, that way she knew I wouldn’t have the fight to try to come back.