Chapter 1: Sting
I can still feel the burning of the chemicals. Especially when I blink.
When its touched with fingers, the acid feels slimy and slick, like oil.
But when it comes in contact with your eyes...its excruciating....burning, like the flesh is being ripped off your eyeball.
I was walking my dog, Kappy, when it happened. We had just left our Brooklyn apartment while a maintenance crew was cleaning one of the windows of the lower apartments. I could smell the acid they were using before I saw the bucket. My dad used it a lot while cleaning our windows back home.
I was just picking up Kappy's droppings when the bucket went flying in mid-air. Behind me one of the men started screaming something in Spanish. I looked up in response and the last thing I saw was the colorless liquid in mid-flight. Stinging pain, like that of million needles, engulfed my eyes.
The strangest thing, however, was the burning sensation I felt in my mouth. The acid only got into my eyes, right?
A few seconds later, I began to hear sirens.
The ambulance was humid and reeked of chemicals and antiseptics. The urge to cough suddenly crawled up my throat.
Covering my mouth was an oxygen mask. Every now and then, somebody would remove the mask and place a tissue on my mouth.
"Did she swallow some of the acid?" asked one of the paramedics. "Yeah, not that much thank God!" another replied. "But we have to send her to the ER, she's losing a lot of blood!"
Two days later, I wake up but only to grayness. I blink again or at least I thought I had...Nothing. Just as I begin to panic, I hear a group of people come in.
"Honey..." I hear my dad say.
"Daddy?" I ask. All I hear are sobs and silence. "Is mom with you?
"Yes." he says in a quivering voice. I feel his rough hands suddenly wrap around mine.
"Is she crying? Why is she crying?" I ask.
"Hello there, Kimberly. I'm Doctor Shepherd. I understand that you had an accident with some Methanol."
"Yeah, I guess." I blink my eyes again in confusion. Doesn't do much of course.
A deep sigh drowns out my racing thoughts.
"Kimberly, I'm sorry to have to be the one to inform you of this, but your accident has caused you permanent blindness"
"Wait, huh?" I say trying to sit up.
"How...how could I be blind? I mean, my dad has gotten that stuff in his eyes before, how comes he's not-"
"Sweetheart? Kimberly?" My dad says. "Apparently, the acid was in your eyes much longer and when it hit you, you somehow went into shock and blacked out."
Silence.
"Before, you could finally get to the ER, the doctors said that too many of your photoreceptor cells had been permanently damaged."
His words became louder and start fading all at the same time. I could feel myself rubbing my eyes and liquid coming out but not being able to see it.
"Honey it'll be alright." I hear my mom say amidst her sobs. Not really comforting especially when you can't see your own mother.
Before the accident, I had a normal life and I wrote as much as I wanted when I wanted. But now like my laptop, everything in my life has been marked with braille. No more colors, shades, or brightness …just little bumps…
Chapter: 2 Music
I could hear the music all the way in my room. Coming from my mom's radio in the kitchen. Of course, the kitchen is on the other side of my wall. But that's not all I hear. The sounds of my parents' voices make their way to my small ears, even though they are talking in the den....at the the other side of the house. Something about the ex-boyfriend of my younger sister, Mellie. I can also hear my elderly neighbor, Kaitlin Ann murmuring in a mellow tone amongst her son and his wife.
They visit her every Friday, just to give her company, which I think is sweet. Ron, Kaitlin's son, has these bright green eyes that I used to love to look into every time I saw him. I still have a clear, vivid memory of them, my biggest fear is that it'll eventually fade away into oblivion.
The best way I can describe the day I was finally out from the hospital is noisy. It was like someone had amplified the volume to 100. Every sound was concert-loud and intensified. The buzzing of 2 bumblebees was equivalent to the roar of a lawn mower. The screams of children playing with their dogs at the park across the street gave me the illusion of being in a bounce house at a child's birthday party, instead of just coming out of a hospital.
My family of course was just carrying on like it was another ordinary day.
"Why do they have to be so loud?" I complained about the kids as my mom helped me into the car.
She sighed. "Honey, you're just not used to depending on four senses, instead of five. Just give it a week. Things won’t be so loud after that."
"At least she no longer has to watch dad's embarrassing dancing any longer..." Mellie joked from the backseat. My mom chuckled quietly. I tried to join in with a half-hearted laugh, but quickly stopped. Why laugh when you can no longer see yourself do so?
What happened next is an event that I still can't wrap my mind around. What made mom decide to meet with my dad during his lunch break that particular day??? I still can't figure out the answer.
