Blind Jump Into… Are You Sure?

Are you sure?

“Final words, final thoughts,” he mumbled, as he walked towards the massive iron doors, a lamb ready to be sacrificed. “The headsman will be there, waiting for me.”

 Being sent off was the right punishment for his terrible lapse of judgment, stealing the purse of the Sheikh’s wife.

The heavy doors slid, a vertical throat opening in agony, the blood gushing out, darkness poured from…

“Oh.”

The inside of the palace didn’t strike him as the dreadful place others told him about after all. He expected a dungeon, a torture chamber, not a marbled whiteness of astounding beauty, glittering precious stones and lush vegetation.

A hooded man appeared from an entrance to the left, followed by the Sheikh’s wife.

“Today, I’ll take something away from you,” she said. “But you choose. Should I take your hands or your eyes?”

It seemed like an easy choice. “Take my hands.”

“Are you sure? Hands can be your eyes too.”

“I’m sure, take my hands.”

It was done in a split second.

A few years later, despite still being a young man, his eyesight failed him completely and permanently due to some bizarre malady.

Moral of the story: Easy choices are not often the best choices.

Alternative moral of the story: Don’t rush to make any decision involving hands and eyes, especially if it seems to be an easy choice.