An Old Friend (Short Stories)

An Old Friend

"I love you mom, I promise I'll be okay" John spoke, hesitantly, as he didn't even know for sure. This surgery, although to help him, did have a lot of risk. His mother didn't agree to it in the first place, said it didn't matter, said he would be okay without it. John, though, John jumped right when he heard he could be cured, he could be fixed. The weakness he has to live with since birth, it could end here, right on his 24th. The twelfth of October, the day John's life changed forever.

The surgery went quite good. John was responding immaculately to the procedure, and everything was going swell. The drugs hadn't worn off yet, and John was still under. His mother, father and girlfriend waiting by his side. Waiting, waiting to see if it had worked.

John woke up, hazy, unable to comprehend where he was. As his memory came back, his full focus was fixated on his eyes. Although they were swollen and it seemed they were three sizes too big for him, he knew he would get used to it soon. He could feel the anticipation in the room, his Mother, his Father, Jessica, he could feel them. What if this didn't go as planned? What if he was even more blind than before? Is that even possible? Is there a darker darkness waiting to engulf him when he opens up his eyelids?

Brightness, light and color. That's all John saw for a few minutes, he saw what he had never seen. He saw what was missing in his life since the day he was born. He could soon make out the figure of his mum, waiting patiently in the arm chair by his bed. No one had noticed him awake, and he didn't want them too, not yet, he wanted to enjoy it before they took him in for hugs and kisses. She was beautiful, more beautiful than he ever imagined her. You could see the 24 years spent taking care of a blind child on her face. The trouble and stress of it all, of the days he came back from school butchered and battered. The days where he didn't bother getting out of bed. The days where he cried for hours and hours because he couldn't read, or write or watch the latest movies the other kids did. The days where it was just enough, where she couldn't take it anymore. In the end, she made it, with her life's difficulty paid off. Her son could now see, she just didn't know it yet.

John murmured a bit, gasping as the new colors almost popped his eyes out. They were just so beautiful. Their names, he needed to know their names. "Mum, what's the color of the shirt your wearing?" He heard three gasps, one after the other, as if in a soap opera. "Is that Red? Blue? Yellow? Green?" He kept asking.

"It's orange, honey, orange. Just plain old orange." She laughed, cupping his face in her palms. He turned to Jessica, her beauty and radiance overwhelming him. She was gorgeous, more than she would ever know. Everyday she would complain to him, that she didn't look perfect, or she wasn't stick thin like all the other girls. He never understood what she meant, he imagined her pretty, and she was even more gorgeous than he would have ever thought. John wondered, right then, if people didn't think that. Why would people not think of her like that?

"Hello John" he heard her say in the oh too familiar voice. She was hesitant, shy even. Why was she shy? There was nothing to be shy about.

"Hey gorgeous" he said back, giving her his most radiant smile. She smiled back. God, how he could almost fall into that smile, it was as if the whole world melted, and it was only the pair of them staring into each others eyes. She blushed a bit, as if she didn't deserve the compliment.

John's dad was waiting in the corner of the room, a tear falling down his wrinkled face. John turned his head slowly, as if scared of what he'd see. His father seemed so proud, so amazed, so thankful. Even with no experience with faces, John knew, no he felt, the happiness radiating from the old man sitting in a plastic rolling chair. John looked down to his shirt, knowing that color.

The color he saw everyday, from morning to night. The color he cried over in his sleep. His enemy. Now, that color, the one he dreaded so much. It's a reminder of those days, the days that shaped him into what he is now. Now, that color, it's his old friend.