Learning To See

Martyn was born blind and has always relied heavily on his hearing to navigate and understand the world around him. He walks with a cane, and his eyes are always closed-he doesn't even know what color they are, nor has he ever thought to ask. For him, the world has always been cloaked in darkness.

That began to change when he discovered a small spark of magic within himself. With time and practice, he learned to use it to "paint" mental images of people and places in his mind. Through subtle differences in tone, mood, and cadence, he could distinguish colors-hearing the warmth of a sunset in a laugh, or the chill of blue in a hushed whisper. Over the years, he also honed his ability to read body language-not through sight, but through sound. The shifting of feet, the rhythm of someone's breath, the way fabric brushed against itself as someone turned-all of it became a symphony of cues that told him what others could see with their eyes.

Martyn often kept to himself, sitting quietly in the corner of a room with a Braille book in his hands, lost in the raised dots beneath his fingers. Most people didn't approach him. Whether it was discomfort or uncertainty, he had grown used to being left alone.

But that all changed the day a new transfer student joined the theater program. Curious and unafraid, they noticed Martyn sitting by himself and, rather than shy away, felt drawn to him. For the first time in a long while, Martyn's quiet world began to shift-not just with sound and magic, but with the unexpected rhythm of connection.