Clouded eyes

Funnily enough, the optometrist’s office was blinding. When I learned I was going to be blind, my first thought was that he must have misread the results in that glaring room. This assurance, however, was ephemeral. With unsettlingly-blurred vision, I turned to witness my mother crying for the first time. Helpless to confusion and shock and anger all at once, I convinced myself it really was his fault. There was nothing wrong with my parents, nothing wrong with me, and nothing wrong with my genetics, only his lies! His lies and his dumb, bright lights!

I thought my life couldn’t get any worse. I confined myself to my room, my parents occasionally bringing me my food in atypical leniency. This silent acknowledgement that I deserved sympathy, that I was pitiful only worsened my mood, and I alternated between anger, dolour and punishing scepticism for three days. I existed solely in my dark cocoon, unwilling to face my fading vision in the sunlight. On the last, in a feat of self-punishing rage, I flung apart the curtains. I was well aware it was spring because old Mr. Petrovski next door had yammered on to me about tulips and daffodils for weeks - I’d even taken to sneaking through other neighbours’ backyards in order to avoid him. But I couldn’t see it, because the light was too bright for me.

This final confirmation of my affliction pushed me over the edge. I gripped the windowsill for dear life as I bent over it, the taste of bile pungent at the back of my throat. My mind amok and my heart aflutter, I felt trapped inside my own reality as it came crashing down around me. I was too breathless to scream as I screened the horror of my imagined future onto the back of my eyelids. Deepbreathsdeepbreathsdeepbreathsdeepbreathsdeepbreathsdeepbreathsdeepbreaths

My eyes blinked open, nose mere centimetres from the windowsill. At this distance, I saw quite well. It was dirty. Drenched in dust. What? Completely mesmerised by this trifling triviality, I forgot my life and stood. Upon a confused cursory examination, I verified that yes, indeed, my hands were now coated in grime. The room spun with epiphanic detachment. My room was otherwise stainless, spotless, flawless - an omen of the skeletons in my closet. Yet my windowsill was filthy. How could I never have seen this before? Had I really bothered so little with looking outside... with looking outward?

My fingers skate along the grain of the kitchen table as my mind drifts in remembrance of things past. This was a year ago, and yet I am a lifetime of change from my fifteen-year-old self. I can’t rely on my eyesight anymore, so I just listen to Mr. Petrovski pottering about around me. I hear birds chirping, the radio crackling, and then a pretty woman walking down the street as he sets a heavy cup of tea in front of me. He doesn’t believe in coffee, although I’ve tried to convince him otherwise several times.

He and I have bonded over my love for flowers and, as the resident botanical expert, his help has been invaluable to me. My parents were originally a little wary, but they saw me pick the earliest bloomer to install on my windowsill last week. It was a soft, meek little tulip and I was the happiest I have ever been. I know my way around my garden pretty well, but my deteriorating vision had made gardening seem impossible at first. Thankfully, I managed to push through, fueled by my newfound appreciation of life.

Said passion had blossomed from the realisation that I’d always been so focused on hating myself and my life I’d never bothered to admire the beauty that existed around me, independent of me. My impending blindness drove me to try to enjoy it whilst I still could. And growing flowers, watching them rise by my own hand and explode in colour, quickly became an addiction.

However, this handiwork, coupled with my cataracts, introduced me to a whole new world of sensation - one I didn’t need sight to appreciate. Hearing the seeds swish in their packets and the A-sharp of my full watering can; feeling their velvety shoots burgeon and their buds flourish day by day; inhaling the scent of soil and the bouquet of floral aromas clinging to my clothes every night. Seeing, I could appreciate from afar: now, my life is fulfilled with little pleasures I had never been aware of before. I have clouded eyes, and I’ve found my silver eyeliner.