Blinds

A story I wrote about the terror it can be to lose ones eye sight.

 

 

 

He usually looked at me when I woke up, but that morning, he wasn’t there at all. I thought he might have been up to use the bathroom, but then half an hour later, he still wasn’t there. One of his black, curly hairs lay on his pillow. I picked it up and put it under the pillow. The backside of it was very cool, so I took it instead of mine, rolling over on his side. The sun’s rays were poorly propagating through the blinds, and as I continued to look at them, it seemed like all the light disappeared from the outside world. I rolled back again, taking the pillow with me. The door to the hallway was on the very far side of the room. It sounded like music was coming from the other side, but I soon realized that it was just playing in my head. I thought about getting up, but soon I was lulled back to sleep, and although I managed to grasp one more little dream, I still felt it a dreamless night. I’d heard him rummage around in the darkness a few times, assuming that he was going for something to drink or finding a blanket.

I stepped out on the floor. It was cold. We removed our bedroom rug a while back. He had said that we didn’t need it anymore, that the winter had passed. I told him that a winter shouldn’t dictate whether or not we were having a rug in our bedroom, but to him, that was another form of logic. His logic was a weird one, for it existed only in the books he read or the movies he saw. I tried telling him of the logic in the life between people, and the logic that isn’t particularly visible. He turned the light off then, and we went to sleep. I passed the rugless floor and opened the door out to the hall. I could see into the kitchen from there, but he wasn’t there either. I saw the water-boiler switch had been turned on, but there was a smashed cup on the floor. Some of the pieces were removed, but some of them, some of the smaller pieces near the corners were still there. The counter was covered in little pieces of green tea, but some of them had clearly been removed, streaks of hand motions painted among the small leaves.

I stepped into the living room, and there he sat.

“Good morning, honey,” I said.

“Good morning,” he said, not lifting his head from the book he was reading.

“You’re up earlier than you are usually are, aren’t you?”

I spread the blinds from the windows, letting in the sunshine, but then the clouds took over the sun entirely. He took a sip of his tea.

“Did you sleep OK?” I asked.

He flipped a page in his book.

“I can’t see anymore,” he said.