Blind Not Oblivious

Five

Have you ever heard the phrase, the silence is deafening. Yeah, right now, the silence was shredding the flesh on my ears and knocking on my ear drums with so much power and force I wanted to be deaf. 

I lay in the sheets, alone, while my mother was talking to the doctor behind the thick walls. I wondered what they were saying. I wondered where my father was. I wondered what had happened to me. How did it happen to me. Why did it happen to me.

I wasn't a bad kid. I got detention once for forgetting my clothes in gym. I turned in my work on time. I put forth effort, studied for tests, even volunteered at the pet shelter every other week. I minded my own business. Stayed in my own lane. Yet I was being put through hell, and I don't know if I will ever figure out why. 

I lay in the quiet, breathing in the stillness, feeling the air move on while I was the one stuck in place.

I looked at the canvas and the colorful painting I made earlier in my mind. The radiating purple was there but it was dimmer and took up less space. The curious greens and yellows were now more spread out and abundant. The pair were grabbing your attention, doing everything they could to figure out what the hell was going on.

The red was there but was now joined with another color. Blue. It was calming and subdued and didn't quite go with the pulsing red. Maybe it was acceptance. Or peace. 

I lay there admiring the smeared colors in the white void that had become my life. I sat and I thought.

I thought about how this was not only affecting me, but my family. My mother was so tired when she spoke to me. She must have felt alone and shattered. Trying to stay strong while there was so much damage in her son and herself. And my father, I don't even know where he is. Is he at work, forcing to put on a smile and act like his son didn't implode on himself. Or maybe he is at a bar, letting old habits die hard.

I ticked, counting the seconds. Waiting for the door to open and the silence to break. What were they telling her, why did it feel like years of waiting?

I imagined the nurses voice. "Mrs. Imarie, may we please speak to you in the hall." He sounded so giddy. Like he won the lottery. Or his wife had a child. Or maybe it was something simple, maybe he was just celebrating the fact he could see. 

Or maybe, that I could.

What if tests came back? What if there was a chance that my "condition" fell in that 34 percentile.?What if they could save me. What if they could also save my voice? Oh what I would do to hear my own voice again. To see colors that I was not creating. 

I let my canvas run wild. It was now white instead of black and the greens and yellows took up most of the space, pushing the red to the side. The blue turned into another shade of green that glimmered with excitement. The purple was gone and now lay a lighter lilacy color of hope. Hope and light anticipation of the news that i can live a life with vision and voice. 

One where I can read and sing and look at my family and tell them how much I love them. One where I will cherish all of the lines and shades of life. And I will scream when I want just feel grateful that I still can. I stared at the white void that lost all of its intimidation. For it was now the light at the end of this tunnel and I was ready to reach. I was ready to run out with arms wide and to never look back at the emptiness and that eerie numbness. 

I stared at my canvas, silently saying goodbye to those colors and getting ready to welcome the natural ones, when I heard the door open.

The door opened slowly, and I could hear my mother's weeping. I heard her try to pull herself together, to tuck the sadness away.

I sunk deep into the bed. I never thought of the possibility that his voice wasn't giddy or cheerful. But nervous, anxious, and even somewhat pitiful. One that held bad news on it's shoulders and was trying to release it as fast as it could. Trying to rip the band-aid off. 

I felt a tear fall down my cheek as my canvas now lost all color and it was just me and the white void again. I was not at the end of the white, this was no tunnel. This was a plain and I was in the center. And  I would never find my way out of it.