It was at the park, that I met him; the man who would change my life.
He sat on a bench by himself, staring at all the people as they passed him by. The couples holding hands, the mothers pushing their children around in Fisher Price strollers, the joggers, flying by, ear buds in ears and eyes set dead ahead on the path stretching in front of them. But for some reason, his gaze kept finding its way back to me.
His watery, blue eyes locked on as I flipped through the book I had brought from home. They were like oceans, crashing down over the sand and pulling back into his skull with the gravitational pull of the moon.
After a while , his gaze began to bother me, so I stood up and made my way over to him.
"Excuse me, sir," I said, "You're making me feel really uncomfortable. So uh...could you please stop?"
He kept looking straight ahead as if I hadn't said a word, but he finally spoke up just as I was turning to leave.
"Am I staring at you? I'm sorry if I startled you, young lady. If I could see you, I probably would stare. You sound lovely."
I blushed wildly when I saw the distant look in the man's eyes and the cane resting by his leg. Yet, his eyes seemed to follow the sound of my voice as if instead of hearing it, he could see my words floating through the air.
"Oh gosh! I-I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you were-"
"Blind?" He asked.
I fell silent.
"No one really ever does anymore, but it's ok. I don't mind."
We were both quiet for a moment as a middle-aged woman and her teenage daughter passed us.
They were deep in conversation about things I couldn't quite catch but it ended with a smile, and a soft roll of the eyes. The wind picked up and softly rustled the leaves on the tree overhead.
The man smiled.
"It's Autumn, isn't it?...I always love this time of the year...Is it beautiful?"
"Yes, it's very beautiful."
"If you don't mind, would you describe it to me, please?" he asked, looking around with sightless eyes. After becoming a little comfortable around the man, I sat down next to him and began to think.
I couldn't imagine a way to describe Autumn to him.
I was never that great at descriptions or anything, but when I saw the eager look on his face, I knew I had to try.
"Um...well, you and I are sitting on a –uh, green bench, surrounded by dozens of trees, filled with colors like fire...ya know, red, orange, yellow...There are leaves all over the ground, you can only see small patches of grass under these blankets of color. There is a fountain in the small clearing near our bench, and the leaves keep falling into it. There is a bunch just floating around on the surface of the water" I giggled," A man just drove by on his bike and nearly crashed into a tree when he saw the pretty jogger running past him....and there's a family of ducks down by the lake. Hmm, that's nice, it looks like they're heading south for the winter...oh, but one is struggling...he's back on the ground, flapping around like a fish out of water, the poor thing. Probably trying to follow his family ...It looks like one of his wings is hurt! Oh gosh, its broken! And his family is leaving him behind! Oh...oh I don't think he'll make it!"
I began to stand up, ready to go help the bird, but I stopped when I looked over and saw the old man crying.
Tears were bubbling up in his ocean eyes and slipping down his cheeks.
"I'm just like the duck with the broken wing, you know...Everybody left me behind too. They left me behind once I lost my sight and for all they know, I could be dead..."
"I'm sorry about whatever happened to you. I really am. " I stopped talking for a moment, and then looked over at him, "I don't want to come off as rude for asking this but, how did you become blind? I just assumed you were born that way."
His voice dropped a little as he started to speak.
"About fifteen years ago, I was in a horrible car accident... I suffered major head injuries...when I woke from the coma I had been in, everything was black and just...gone. The doctor...He told me that I had become permanently blinded," He paused for a moment to wipe a few tears away, and then he continued his story, "Apparently, the part of my brain that had suffered the most damage had been my Cerebrum; though, only my eye sight was drastically affected...My wife left me because of all the stress...and she took the kids with her... I haven't heard from them since."
For a long time, we were both quiet.
I watched the duck as it flapped around by the lake, and I couldn't help but feel pity for it.
I couldn't help feel pity for the man, too.
"I'm sorry that your life has been so unfair to you," I said, glancing over at him as he wiped another tear from his eye.
But then, the man began to chuckle softly.
"You know, it was unfair! For God's sake, I lost my family, my job, my ability to see. But one thing that I've learned out of all of this is that maybe," he laughed, "Maybe I'm better off without eyes. I know that on the surface, the world appears to be beautiful and kind, but underneath its skin, men have absolutely corrupted it. They've taken it and warped it into something unrecognizable and ugly. From a beautiful flower into a dusty, hunk of scrap metal! When you saw me staring at you, what was the first impression you got?"
"Gosh...I don't know...I thought you were some kind of pervert...or something like that."
"Exactly," he grumbled, "Nobody can be trusted nowadays. The world is full of filth and sin.
It seems like sex, drugs, and money are the only thing that truly matter to people anymore. Where is the love, the compassion, the honesty? Where did all that go?! For all you know, I could be lying to you about everything I've said to this point. I could actually be a pervert who tells young, pretty women like yourself that I'm blind, so that they'll feel bad for me. How do you know that I'm not?" His face was red and his cheeks were puffed out with anger.
I hesitated at first, unable to answer his question but finally after a moment of thinking, I replied.
"I guess I don't know, but if you were like that, you would never be able to admit it to yourself so openly. It's the same with alchohics and drug addicts. They even have to go to special meeting to tell themselves out loud, that they have a problem. You just somehow manage to see the world differently even though you can't see at all.
Because You don't need eyes to see the evil in the world."
The duck with the broken wing by the pond, had stopped flapping around.
In fact, it had stopped moving all together.
Leaving the man, I stood up and walked over to the bird.
When I was close enough to it, I realized that it was dead. By flapping around so much, it had somehow managed to snap its own neck.
I stood there for a few minutes just staring at the dead duck. It looked so helpless and pitiful, that I had to turn away.
I started walking back with a new feeling settling into my heart; A cold numbness that gripped me with its strange, icy fingers, and pulled me into this dazed world. The feeling was foreign to me, and a small part of me was terrified of it.
When I got back to the bench, the blind man was gone. It was like he had vanished into thin air.
There was not a trace that he had ever even been there.
Sighing, I slumped down and pulled my book back out, then paused for just a moment to look around before I began to read again.
Sometimes I wonder what became of the old man. If he made it by in his life, or if his wife and kids ever decided to contact him. Or if his story was even true at all...I always hope for the best, but really, no one can say for certain.
I'll look for him from time to time whenever I come to the park, half expecting to see him there, sitting on his bench, waiting.
Waiting for this great, big world to change.
