Undisclosed Virtues

• Samuel Adebajo, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2011

Undisclosed Virtues

The eyes are the gateway to the soul…deep? Not really. I never have to go deep with anyone anymore since I first discovered my ability. One glance and I know everything about the person. Their personality, their present emotions, their life experiences…everything.

Hopeless is life to me now. I do not care for people who I already know are wrought with shortcomings and weaknesses which will someday harm me, whether consciously or unconsciously. And everyone falls into this category. You can never really trust someone when you know that. They too don’t trust me for they know that I know it all.

I shuffle down the office aisle, passing all my colleagues as I head away from my desk towards the bathroom. I don’t make eye contact. It’s just the same flawed people. But as I shamble forward I look into the eyes of the new girl. I look into her and see passion and excitement. I identify this and more through her eyes.

But then I walk along the long, winding track: her imperfections. As I suspected she is terribly corrupt… like every human. It fills me with sadness to know how wicked my race is. Every day, I search in the hope that I might find someone, just one person, who is…pure. But in vain I search. I don’t look into her any further. She is the same. The same as you and me. The hardest thing to know is that I myself am corrupt. Once that dawned on me years ago, I felt hopeless. Our race is doomed to live in iniquity. I wrench my eyes away. After finishing in the toilet, I shamble out and start walking back to my desk.

At first, I ignore it, thinking it can’t be possible. But once I look again I realize that it is true. I see the girl staring into me. Through my eyes. My gateway into my soul. She’s like me! However, that is not the only thing I noticed. Not even the most amazing thing.

She is good. I see it in her eyes. She is pure and untainted. She is all that I have ever hoped to find. I still see all her faults and failures but they seem insignificant now that I see the godly beauty of purity and love burning in her. I smile and notice that she too is smiling. We both see the good in one another.

She tilts her head towards the man in the desk across from her. I look and see not the corrupt man that I always see but a kind man who cares for justice. I look into every person in the room and see the same thing in varying degrees of strength. That’s when I realize what the girl is showing me: we are all good and pure at heart. There is something, someone, greater than all wickedness at work within in us. We simply need to harness it and all our inadequacies diminish in the light of its’ splendour. My smile broadens. Thank you, I mouth to her. She nods, still smiling. Finally…I have hope.