Saturday, March 14, 2015

Lost and found

I can hear the birds above me, I sit in the soft moss, it's dry and a strong smell of pine fills my nostrils. I've lost track of time, but I know I've been sitting here for at least an hour, maybe two. I must be in a clearing, because I can feel the sun on my face, it has been many years since I could see the sun, or see anything at all. I know I'm lost, if you can say lost if you never had an intended goal. I guess my goal was to live, and last night I against all odds had escaped the train that was transporting me and other people who no longer was use to society towards "Paradise". We all knew that paradise was just another name for the final destination, a place to dispose of the unwanted.  In our society there was no room for imperfections like me.

For a long time I was able to hide the fact that my eyesight was leaving me and that I finally was left blind, I worked from home, and my beloved partner Que would do what my eyes wouldn't, she cooked, cleaned and installed little devices that helped me keep the act up, not even our closest friends had suspected that they were in the presence of an imperfect being. I had programmed my computer so I could continue my work even when I became completely blind. I knew every inch of our apartment, and the few times I had to leave the apartment, Que would come with me, and our steps would sync and she would without hesitation lead me through every task and I trusted her, as the blind man I was, she never gave me a reason to doubt. 

I don't know why or how I lost my eyesight. Maybe I was born with the malfunction, maybe it was because of all the chemicals I used to work with in my rookie years, before I became a senior and I left the big barrels of chemicals behind me. Whatever the cause was, I was no longer a functioning unit in a society of perfection and it had only been about how long it would take before they realized it. You would think that with the height of modern technology and medical advance there be a cure for whatever made me blind, but I knew that if they would have found any genetic imperfection, I would have been disposed of, so my choice was easy, I rather stay in hiding with Que, than to peruse a possible death sentence, even if death never scared me, we all knew that death was in the end of our productivity. It took them five years to figure it out, that I was blind, five years where I got to wake up next to the woman I loved, hold her close to me. Five years of living a life in darkness and hiding, but in no doubt, I would do it all over again. 

I guess no one thought a blind man could escape a moving train. Our society was designed for perfect people, and I guess that the imperfection that brought me onto the train, was also what saved me. It surprised me. I guess in our perfect world, we were all so perfect, that most of us followed protocol, we were taught that we would get what we expected.  All I did was to find a door, push down the handle, and to my surprise it opened and my foot stepped into rushing air and nothingness. I decided I was going towards my death in any case and just jumped, thinking of how Que’s tears had wet my cheek when they took me away. I remember how she softly had whispered into my ear that she could never share life with anyone else. I knew she would have to, coupling was not an option, it was a requirement. 

I traveled in the air for a few seconds before my body with painful splash met a body of water. The air of my lungs got knocked out and I thanked my grandparents in my distant past for teaching me to swim. My arms and legs whisking around in the water, I wasn't able to tell what was up and down, but everything around me was water. After trying to fight myself, I calmed myself down and let the water push me upwards, and after what felt like hours but probably only was a minute or two, I broke the surface with lungs that were screaming for air. My heart was racing and my ears that been my most reliable source of my surroundings were full of water and I felt lost. 

The water was cold and my clothes where weighing me down, I wanted to free myself for the clothes, but also knew that if I got out of the water, I would need my clothes. No matter how much I wanted to get rid of them right now. I felt how I was drifting along the water in a slight current, and I guessed that I had landed in a river. I had never seen a river, but I had read about them in books from the past century. Nature was an untamed element that we never where to enter. It was nothing but 

I kicked my way to the river bank and gotten out of the river. Exhausted I dragged myself into the woods, I stumbled into several trunks and sharp branches of pine whisked my face before I must have fallen  asleep in the clearing.


Project: A blind man lost in the woods, in first person: project given by Luke Smith