Bits and Pieces

Day 19 - [Un]Blind

Alternative: Write a scene from the point of view of someone deaf or blind.

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I listen to the rustling of paper as I turn the pages of the book slowly. Bending my head down as if I'm reading it, I blink at the darkness in front of me.

I run my fingers along the spine of the book continuously, up and down, up and down.

Strangely, it's a comfort to know that, at least, books don't think you're weird even if you can't read them.

They don't gasp with pity or touch your hand with concern or whisper behind your back. They just repeat the same words to you over and over again, not caring who they're saying them to.

Maybe that's why I love coming here, a place where people like me don't usually belong. No one disturbs you; everyone seems lost in their book world, or at least that's what I imagine.

There's a lot of things I have to satisfy with my imagination.

Hearing about blue and green and white, about how the ocean looks so beautiful in summer and how the lightning lights up the night when it strikes across the sky might as well be another language to me.

When I tell people this, about how I imagine things, they always wonder how that's possible when I don't even know how anything looks like. When I don't even know how the things I imagine things look like, look like.

How can you imagine what things look like when you've never seen anything?

Most times, I don't mind. I like to think that what I'm imagining is the real thing, and everyone else in the world is wrong. As if I'm the only one who can see, and everyone else can't.

But sometimes, very frequently, I would like to see what the rest of the world sees. Just once, if I can. To fill my eyes with what everything looks like and not being unsure about it for once.

The only thing I'm absolutely sure about is the color black.

I sigh at my gloomy thoughts and realize I lost my place in the book I'm holding. Turning the pages so that I'm at the beginning again, I repeat the words I memorized from the tape of the same book at home, as if I'm actually reading it. For some reason, I've gotten in the habit of doing that for a while now; I guess it's one of the ways I tell myself I can live like normal people. I don't know if it works though.

When I'm on the third page, I hear the sound of someone sitting in the seat next to me. I pretend to not notice.

Even when I hear them coughing as if to get my attention, my lips don't stop moving inaudibly to the endlessly repeated words flowing out of my memory.

"Um, e-excuse me. Not trying to be creepy or anything, but I've seen you around here a couple of times before, and I-I was just wondering if I could know your name?"

This time, I stop the words as if I'm turning off a faucet and lower the book unto my lap. But I don't look up, my hair covering my face from his view, from anyone's view actually.

"S-sorry if I'm bothering you, it's just that I'm the type that can't bear to have something on my mind without figuring it out. And ever since I saw you come in here, I've been wanting to get to know you. N-not that I have an interest in you, just that I wanted to be your friend. Well, I guess that is having an interest, but not that kind! Don't take it the wrong way, I-"

A very small laugh, but a laugh all the same, slips out of my mouth from his silly nervousness.

He clears his throat as if he's embarrassed, and we both sit in awkward anticipation for the other to speak first.