LAVENDER ORCHIDS FOR THE QUEEN OF LIGHT I was born without sight in San Paolo. My dear parents went to God shortly after from the water in the street. I lived in the box of a house in the Thieves Ghetto. I had to beg for the food or visit the garbage heap as a last resort. I always thought I could see shadows and light but probably not. The darkness is bad for the child and the adult. They have to lead me through the barrio to the piles of gargage that we eat. I have had many sicknesses and called for God please take me. Please take me home to MaMa. On a day of blackness and the carrion feeders circling, a smell of lavender, wafted by my stoop. A voice like silk said to me child take a walk with me. The voice sounded soothing and trusting. She took my filthy hand in hers and the lavender, began to take over my stench. She walked me across the city to the houses with gates and I heard them open and we walked in like we owned the place. She did. We went in and she poured me some hibiscus tea with honey. It was so delicious and clean, everything was clean and slippery. I heard the maid say, the duena again is loco. She took me up the stairway and called for a bath. The young maid drew a bath of lavender leaves and other herbs in it and scrubbed my skin almost off. My hair was cut and cleaned and my clothing burned. The lavender lady then took me to the basement where she walked me into a room of death. It smelled of the garbage heap. And there I passed by many dying and dead. She guided me to a table, bade me lay down and put the ether to my nose. I fell into a dream where all of life I could see, but it was uncanny, I had never seen before and all things weren't as the were in the mortal world. She rubbed my eyeballs with a liquid that burned like hot pokers and she had her men hold me down on the table. She then plucked my eyes from my head and left the sockets. With a speculem she held my lids open and placed the other orbs in my sockets and bandaged my eyes tight. I prayed every night for my life. The pain was immense but every night she sat all night with me. She told me of the Sultans in Turkey and the jewels of the earth and opulence and of how the beauty of the earth outside the slums was so gorgeous. I began to see with her talk and she would talk all night untill I slept. Every night the lavender told me she was coming. One day she unwrapped the cloth and rubbed more of the ointment on me eyeballs and the light began to shine through. Suddenly figures appeared and I could make out items about the room. And the lavender wafting about as if it was in my eyes or someones eyes. Through the next month she showed me how to walk properly and use insturments to get things done, like eating and cleaning myself. She always looked at me with what I felt was immense love and as she healed me, I began to feel her in my heart. I always wondered why she picked me. One day she told me to sit. She said Pablito, you have the eyes of my son and you were the first urchin we saw, there was no surveillance. You will now become my son and be wealthy and all this will be yours one day. I flew from the house shedding the fine shoes and blouse and belt and ran towards where my nose led me and I ate my fill. I never have loved to be pitied. written by Micheal Forbus