That Look in Her Eyes

She was young and didn't know any better. At least that was what people said in her defense whenever her story was recounted.

But really, at 16 years of age, was that a defensible excuse? Is there ever an acceptable age when people are automatically accounted to "know better"?

The story started in an accident & emergency ward of a Vietnamese hospital. She was at the hospital waiting for news of a relative who was involved in an accident. As she turned to search for a seat, she saw someone being wheeled by; he was lying down in a hospital bed.

"O, what a handsome mien this chap has!" she thought to herself. "I have rarely seen anyone so good-looking. What a pity he is in such a state."

She shared those thoughts with her closest friend and confidante later on recounting her hospital trip.

A few days passed uneventfully. On one fateful day, she was supposed to meet some potential suitors her parents had chosen for her. But she took ill suddenly and the meeting never happened.

Overnight, her temper also took a turn for the worse. Where she used to very biddable and gentle, she flew into a rage easily now at the smallest slight, imagined or otherwise.

Her parents didn't understand the change. Being wealthy, educated Vietnamese, they initially dismissed suggestions from relatives to seek guidance from a medium. There must be a medical reason for her metamorphosis, they insisted.

But there was a look in her eyes that defied any cure by western medicine. A blankness in those dark orbs where vitality and humour once flashed. Finally, they caved in and sought a medium's advice without her knowledge. At the medium's advice, they bound her forcefully, and took her kicking and screaming to a medium. The medium's conclusion baffled the parents greatly: how could their daughter be possessed? She has been sheltered all her life and has never been known to frequent any places where she could come into contact with spirits! In disbelief they took her home.

News spread quickly of her "possession". Her best friend got wind of it and thought that the "encounter" at the hospital might have something to do with it. She told the parents who sought the medium's help to expel the spirit.

The spirit refused. "Blame her for being the one who invited me in with her pity first."

Years passed. Recently her best friend went back to Vietnam for a visit.

The look in her childhood playmate's eyes remains the same. Deep, dark and blank.

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Equal parts truth and fiction. The skeleton of this story is as recounted by a Vietnamese friend of mine, with a heavy dose of fictional spicing on my end. I don't think I quite attained the feel of her story, which sent a slight chill down my spine when I first heard it.