Blindness

The air is warm with laughter, and the floor littered with clothes and makeup. Sprawled throughout the room, we trade jokes, secrets, and stories, paying no mind to the threats of the clock and impending separation. The room is so clearly a reflection of its owner, the youngest of us, and certainly the one with the biggest heart. Her arms are always open, and her innocence creates for her an incorruptible hope. Freckles dot her face, and her beauty carries with it an infectious charm of happiness. If I know but one person who can light up a room, it's her. Knickknacks line the shelves, a bonsai tree sits on her nightstand, a remote control car under her bed. Colorful books in every corner, a closet brimming with eccentric socks. The wall is layered under posters, mainly animals, and a picture or two of her family or friends.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the room is the animals. At first, they seem to be almost part of the room, but closer, nearly everything is alive. A large tank on the right is filled with sand, currently empty, as its usual inhabitant, a bearded dragon, has fallen asleep on my shoulder. A similar tank contains the opposite, sand is replaced by water, and a rainbow of fish dance inside. Another fish tank, this one with a one-eyed fish, jauntily nicknamed "Bullseye" and another, filled with snails and other little aquatic creatures. Her dog, a sandy colored imp, lies with his head in the lap of another girl, proudly displaying his battle scars from a scuffle weeks before. The newest addition is a wire cage, filled with colorful toys, and a labyrinth of a second floor she's created by hand. A white rat splatted with caramel coloring is her pride and joy, and she giggles as it scampers up her arm. A second, pure white, is sleeping in a sweatshirt pocket of another girl.

From an entanglement of drawers that she alone can navigate, she produces a bag of M&Ms and tears them open, offering handfuls to the rest of us. My eyes go wide, and her name escapes my mouth in a shriek. She spins around, confused. Horrified, I stutter about the notorious and brutal animal testing of Mars Candy and the irony of eating M&Ms with rat on her shoulder. The rest of the girls struggle not to laugh, an outburst from me about animal cruelty and corruption is far from abnormal. To them, this is ridiculous, and why shouldn't it be? M&Ms, the colorful chocolate sensations of our childhood. Mars, creator of Snickers, Twix, Dove, Three Musketeers, Starburst, Skittles. A laptop is found, Mars is googled, and sure enough, I'm right. There's endless records of cruel testing on rats, mice, Guinea pigs, rabbits, monkeys, cats, all ending in death. They still laugh at me. The M&Ms are eaten.

Through the rest of the night I watch her struggle with her vegetarianism, her love of animals and their connection to food, a connection the majority of us fail to make. She hovers for an extra second over the peperoni pizza, inhaling deeply, trying to convince herself its enticing smell is resistible. Later still, while watching a movie, I turn and look at her, her profile lit by the glow of the screen. She's not watching the movie either, instead debating with herself and a handful of candy. She eats them.