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She was beautiful.

Her fingers were long and slender, touching her bottom lip as if she was excited for something. Her face was perfectly shaped, with long, wavy hair framing it just right. Her eyes were half open, yet it seemed like they could stare right through one’s very soul. She was sitting on a bench, her flowing dress complimenting her dainty figure well.

He walked past her every day on his route to and from work. She was always in the same position. She was a statue, of course. The placard at her feet was engraved with the word Chiroî. The young kids at the park loved to play on her, occasionally chipping off a finger or two. The city was always quick to repair any damages she sustained.

He was never really one for art, so he figured it must be the name of the artist, as who wouldn’t place their own name on their creation?

Still, it was a highlight of his day, the other being the ability to fall asleep without worry. At least, it would have been. For years now, he worked at a small little art shop in the city. It paid fair, and he got the benefits he needed.

But of course, things took a turn. Ownership was passed from one hand to the next, budget cuts docked his pay, and everything got worse. He couldn’t find a new job, and believe him, he tried. He tried the grocery stores, even construction jobs, but none were willing to hire, or at least willing to hire him. So there he stayed.

Alone.

That was a strange feeling, to be alone. It was like he was blind, and he stumbled around the city like a bumblebee drunk on pollen. There was no one to catch him when he fell, and yet, it felt like he had been falling for a long time. Would he ever stop falling? Would a heavy rain stop the flood? These were answers he already knew the answer to.

Sometimes, only sometimes, he had the urge to sit next to her, which was silly, because she wasn’t real. He used to believe in magic when he was a kid, he practiced magic tricks into the dark of the night until he believed he could do them flawlessly, only to leave them behind once his friends had gotten bored of his acts. His props probably lay at the bottom of some box in his old house labeled ‘Memories’ with a layer of tape so strong, it would destroy the box forever if ripped open. He had always wondered why his mother would save these pointless toys.

“Some other kids would enjoy them more, you know?”

“In the future, you’ll regret having thrown everything out.”

Now that he is in that future, he does not think that he would have regretted it at all. They were just more ‘things’ for him to have, for him to protect. What was the point of it all?

It all started a few months ago. He had given in to that silly urge, sitting next to her. He wasn’t even sure why he did it, and what happened next even shocked him. He started to talk about his day.

“A little old lady came in today, looking for ceramic figurines. She smiled so brightly. I wish I could.”

It was silly. Talking to a statue. A statue couldn’t hear. What if someone saw him? What if someone heard him? They’d call him crazy, maybe call the cops.

And yet he started to speak to her consistently. It started out once a month. Then once a week. Twice a week.

Now he does it every day.

“She told me…”

“I broke…”

“The manager…”

“That stupid…”

“You understand?”

“Are you listening to me?”

“You get me.”

Her stone hands were smooth and cool to the touch. If he couldn’t have friends, then she was his next best bet. She would always be there for him. She understood the fragility of this world, if her eroding feet had anything to say about it. What she could not express in words, she expressed in her pose, always willing to listen. She was the only one who truly got him.

Yes, people would stare, but he lost all awareness of them quickly. They wouldn’t know how he felt, not like they would care.

Then it happened.

He watched them break her.

Her perfect visage lay shattered on the ground, as those villains laughed demonically, the noise grating in his ears. He ran over, cursing those small demons with the foulest language he could muster. He laughed when he watched them run back to the hell they came from, their tears of acid running down their face as they called for their master. They could rot for all he cared.

He picked up what remained of her face, his own tears staining the clay a dark gray. Could the city repair this?

Of course not. The people running the city were morons. They wouldn’t be able to understand how the love of his life was murdered right before his very eyes.

His warm lips met the cold surface of her stone lips, loving her one last time.

His lips cut on the jagged surface of broken rock, but he did not care, his grief was too real.

Then, without warning, his body ached, like he was being boiled alive from the inside out. It was a pain like no one had ever experienced. Or was it? As he lost consciousness, he was met with a sudden clarity. This was not how he wanted his life to end. He wanted to befriend the nice lady that always shared her pet pictures. He wanted to joke with the man whose laughter filled the entire store with his infectious joy. Why did he rely on the statue, whose love he could only obtain superficially? Whose relationship was bound to end with him heartbroken and her sitting on the bench like nothing ever happened.

Then, he woke up on the bench. He couldn’t move. His body was made out of stone. Well, it wasn’t his body. It was hers. Echoing in his ears, he could hear the woes of everyone like him, begging, pleading for this torment to end. They were trapped. They all had realized too late.

But their emotions repair her, allowing her to keep on sitting there, drawing these sorrows in.

Love blinds.