The Innocents, Nathan Senthil [best life changing books .TXT] 📗

with all her energy. Her hand didn’t miss his cheek even by a millimeter, rattling him to the core. His mom had never raised her voice to him let alone her arm.

Torrents of tears lined her wizened cheeks, and her voice broke. “All this time without sight, I’ve never felt blind. Not until now.”

“I… I’m not—”

“Floridan Crocs never heard of any Ryatt,” she said. “Then I called every team you’ve said you worked for during all these years. None of them knows you.”

Ryatt had no clue how she did it, but her eyes were deadlocked on his. They pierced through his façade and glowered at his true self, which uselessly tried to scurry into some dark recess of his grotesque mind. While a cold chill shot through his spine, warm sweat droplets appeared on his forehead and above his upper lip. He sensed his Adam’s apple bobbing, vainly attempting to dampen his parched throat by drily swallowing. He wanted to scram, to bolt from that stifling place, or to just cower at a corner, but he couldn’t move his trembling legs.

“Wikipedia told me that your gang has killed fifty-two people and Lolly…” She sniffled. “You personally took thirty-four lives.” Iris clenched her teeth and spoke in a grim tone. “Is. That. True?”

Ryatt nodded, unable to open his mouth. Another slap landed on the same cheek. This time, her righteous hand also caught his ear, making it ring.

“You know how many boys I saved from the streets?” Iris asked. “Thirty-fucking-four.”

Ryatt closed his ears, wishing it was a nightmare. There was no universe or reality where he could imagine his purer-than-angel mom say that word.

“Thirty-four…” A guttural noise escaped from his mom but she instantly covered her mouth with a hand and inhaled slowly, her body shaking as she did.

Iris’s shoulders, that had never shown weakness, finally slumped. She suddenly appeared so small, so fragile. So old.

What had he done?

Then he accepted the mind-shattering truth: he had destroyed what made Iris Iris.

“All my life’s work is now meaningless.” She looked around the shop. “While I was healing the world on one side, you were wounding it in the other.”

Ryatt said, “Our life was unfair—”

Iris turned her head sideways, as if she did not even want to hear his voice. “Just… just don’t.” She stood there, pondering over something. After a while, she took a breath; her chest inflated once again, and shoulders settled back in their usual position of strength. She looked like she had come to a decision, and Ryatt braced himself for whatever she was gonna say.

She wet her lips. “Let’s eat lunch. I’m hungry.”

Not waiting for an answer, she walked past him and headed towards the storeroom.

Though he was confused by the anticlimax, he followed his mom like a subservient puppy.

As there was only one chair in this room, he sat on the floor.

She began cooking, and he resigned to look down at the carpet, again wishing it all to be a nightmare. He was never more scared in his life than that moment.

Each minute stretched into hours, and an eternity later, she placed two bowls in front of him. One yellow and one white, both brimming with ramen, the food he hadn’t eaten in decades.

After she sat herself down, she picked the yellow bowl. Then she took a fork and began eating.

While she angrily munched the food, she asked, “You’re too good for ramen? I’m sorry, this is all I could afford from my meager but honest income from this candy store. I’m never touching anything that came out of your cardinal sins. Not your house, not your car, and definitely not your steaks.”

Ryatt’s arms stretched automatically and picked the white bowl.

He coiled the ramen onto his fork and brought it to his face. The mere smell of it made him regurgitate. Nonetheless, he shoved a forkful into his mouth.

“Um… this tastes funny,” Ryatt said as he munched. “It leaves a weird aftertaste. All sweet like.”

“Stop complaining. Eat your meal!” she ordered. And he reluctantly obeyed.

After forcefully swallowing half of the food, his vision became watery and slow, like he was falling underwater.

The fork slipped from his numb fingers, worrying him. “Ma…” Ryatt tried to construct words but they slurred.

“Don’t you dare call me that!” she spat, her lips quivering. “I wish I had never borne you in my womb.”

Though Ryatt couldn’t feel his tongue, his ears worked fine and her words hurt him like pins poked into the heart of a voodoo doll of him.

But more than the hurt, he was petrified. He felt like he was intoxicated, his head dizzy, and his mouth began drooling. As his heartbeat rose, he started hyperventilating.

And then everything darkened. The blackness brought along a horrible childhood memory, terrifying him.

“Ma!” he cried. “I can’t see no more, Ma!”

“As much as I hate him, Bugsy was right,” Iris said calmly. “I should have let you stay blind, when you said those exact words forty-two years ago.”

Ryatt did not gracefully descend into water any longer. Everything moved irrationally, chaotically, robbing Ryatt of his balance, and he limply fell sideways.

He wrapped his hands around his throat and squeezed them because something clogged the airway. But to no avail. He could not draw a drop of air.

As he choked and kicked about on the floor, he tried to make peace with the fact. He was dying, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

Still convulsing, he brought a hand to his good eye and rubbed it frantically. He begged God to answer this one prayer. Just let him see his mom’s angelic face one last time.

And God answered by giving him sight, albeit it lasted only for a second.

However, what Ryatt saw in that one second broke him into a million pieces.