A Blind Date
Ella told me to take it easy and enjoy myself. She was my best friend, and I trusted her. However, spending an hour on Valentine’s Day sitting and waiting for a man I’d never met who was clearly blowing me off was not my idea of “enjoying myself.”
I was getting ready to leave when he walked in, looking around the bar like he owned the place. The second he saw me, he beelined straight to me. There was a smile but nothing else to decipher on his face. He hid his expression behind his eyes and didn’t want the world to know it.
“Hey, Lena, right?” Then I nodded, my view narrowing to his hand, which had enveloped mine and brought it to his mouth. I was stunned. This man knew how to win the ladies with a simple kiss. He took me to the dance floor, and we danced for about an hour, had a few drinks and laughed. Eventually, he offered to take me to his home, and I, as drunk as I was, agreed.
The drive was short, but it was just outside the city. We ventured into his apartment for what I expected to be your standard post-bar-date activities.
As soon as the door was shut, the entire mood changed. It was no longer flowy and fun but dark and nauseating. There was an odour that lingered all over this man's home and I couldn’t figure out where it came from.
He took me to the sofa and said he would return with a glass of water. When he returned, something about the water was off; it was grainy. Alarm bells rang in my mind, but I couldn’t react, I couldn’t even move.
I thought this was it; this was the end. I had never felt fear that intense, and I knew I was going to die.
Once I was paralyzed, he removed me from the sofa and brought me into a room. I first noticed the stench was more pungent as if it were being held under my nose and burning through my sinuses.
The second was that the room had plastic tarps along the walls and floor, making for what I had assumed—easy cleanup. I finally noticed the tools, a jar, and a chair.
He returned in a butcher's outfit and said nothing as he organized himself and strapped me into the chair. He then showed me the contents of the jar.
“I believe you will be my prettiest addition yet.” His voice was cold and empty yet giddy, and that same smile from earlier in the night stayed constant. I was horrified to see that the jar contained eyeballs.
I didn’t expect him to let me go; I had expected to die that night. I got lucky, if you can call it that. I woke up in the morning, the punchline of a bad Valentine’s Day joke for now I really was his blind date.
