“Driving is bad for your health, son”, my father used to tell me. Or so I remember he’d told me. A two minute task might take two hours when you’re blind. Imagine how embarassing that would be if you had any kids and you can’t even bathe them properly. I’d imagine them crying from the soap suds stinging their eyes because you have no idea you’re already shampooing their eyeballs instead of their hair.
In a world this rich in color, it’s depressing how actors say lines such as “You bring color to my life” having met a conventionally attractive person who couldn’t even take a joke. Romance is overrated, great writers become commercialized. If colors were sentient, they’d be disgusted for sure.
I have never seen color myself. I was born sightless. I’ve heard that dialogue far too much from movies and shows, it’s beyond cliché already. I always assume they’re the blind one, I mean, I got married and I still see no color. Maybe I married wrong. Wouldn’t that be a bore if true.
I married someone I’d known since high school. She taught me a lot of things, for example cooking, watering plants, even petting animals. She showed me how to do things and have fun, even though I can’t see.
There have been rough patches in our relationship. For one, she wasn’t the only girl I loved. For a blind person, you see, I was told to be above average standards in the looks department. There were girls I didn’t love, but there was one I loved other than my wife.
For five years I had been sleeping with different women almost every other week. Been in every type of physical relationship imaginable. I was a prick and didn’t treat women well.
And then I met her, ironically, in a book store.
She was blind too, and in all things similar to me. She spoke like me, made jokes like me, even wrote like me, might even be better than me if I recall correctly.
I hope you’re wondering how I am able to write this lot, but technology had helped us disabled to live as easily as possible.
I can hear her voice whenever I want to. She had a sweet voice that can be both deep and high at the same time. She sang to me too. That’s one thing I can never do, sing.
This is why it was so easy to fall for her.
My wife and I don’t have children and that’s something she said she had wanted. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t very eager to have any and that she knew, so she decided we didn’t. She felt responsible for my feelings all the time. It’s as if I’m her big baby, if you may say so. I never felt like that with the blind girl. She never took responsibility for things that concerns me inwardly. She asked me to be responsible for my actions.
She never left my mind. I know I’ve said nobody has ever brought color to my life, but ever since the blind girl was out of mine, I knew what grey was.
Grey is a pit of endless sorrow and doubt. Having been sheltered my entire life, the only time I had felt the need to be a good person was with her. I felt the need to be perfect, to rule the world. With her by my side, I had one eye at the very least that can see. I had hands, I had feet, I had a mouth, I had balls. But being too alike, we eventually created so much friction that left us both hurt and burnt.
We broke up so many times in between our 3 years together until that one time I left her for good. I got married and took everything she’d given me and used it to live a normal life with someone who I didn’t have to impress. I know my father would be proud I took the easy way out. If I had chosen her, life would be both pain and pleasure. I don’t do well with the pain part.
My head is dizzy from the pain meds I just took. I drove the car out. It’s not her fault but I really wanna see color so I drove directly to what I somewhat see as white. It was short but I saw color. Finally. I wonder if that’s what she saw as well in her last moments on earth.
It’s all black now. My father was right. My health didn’t even make it to the hospital, I was dead on arrival. Blind people stay blind in hell, I guess.
The Variables of Jums 