Love and First Sight(34)

This is a strange feeling, discovering that I might gain a new sense. I’ve gone my whole life without eyesight, assuming that I wanted it, assuming that my life would be so much better if I had it. But now that it might possibly happen, I’m actually kind of afraid. Afraid of all the stuff that could go wrong, the complications, the side effects, the chance of infection. And there are the difficulties adjusting that Dad told me about. The possibility of confusion, stress, headaches, depression.

Who will I be when I am no longer Will Porter, blind teenager? What will I be like? And the other kids in school—the hundreds of voices I pass by each day in the hall—what will they think? To me, they’re an undifferentiated and anonymous mass of chattering, but to them I must be memorable. I mean, I’m the only blind kid in the school. The one with the sunglasses and the long white cane that swings shin-whackingly wide through the hallway, the guy who occasionally makes wrong turns, who uses the girls’ restroom, and who’s trying to host the morning announcements. Will they think that I am a sellout, giving up the life I was meant to live, the body I was born with, not accepting my place and my condition and my community? Or will they accept me as one of their own, without question?

Cecily comes over and sits with me in my room the night before my operation. “You know what bothers me?” I find myself telling her as we sit beside each other on my bed. “Blind people have a difficult time because most people have eyesight. But if the whole human race had evolved without eyesight, we would have adapted to it. Like bats. That species figured out how to survive without it.”

“Bats?” That word seems to catch her off guard.

“Yeah, like bats. I mean, sure, if the entire human race went blind all at once tomorrow, the world would fall into chaos. But if it happened very gradually, we’d figure it out. We’d find a way.”

“I guess,” she says reluctantly.

Then I realize what I’m hearing in her voice: She’s remembering the incident in the hallway, when those guys called her Batgirl because she was hanging out with me. I don’t want her pondering the price she’s paid for being my friend, so I abandon the bat example and move on to a different line of reasoning, speaking quickly to distract her.

“You probably think blindness is really difficult, but that’s just because you have adapted to your situation. That would be like if Superman looked at you and he was like, ‘Cecily’s life must be so terrible because she can’t fly.’ He’s only saying that because he’s used to flying. He doesn’t know that you can get along just fine with the abilities you have as a normal human.”

“Are you having second thoughts?” she asks, interrupting my train of thought.

“I guess. Maybe. I don’t know,” I say slowly. “I mean, sure, I’m fine the way I am. But I think things could be better.”

“Like because you’d enjoy seeing things?”

“Yeah,” I say. “And I’m tired of the way people treat me. Like the way people are so overly nice to me because they assume I can’t do stuff for myself.” I pause, thinking back on the Incident. “And sometimes the opposite. Sometimes they’re… cruel.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

So I tell her the whole story. About Alexander, about Candy Land, about my parents’ decision to send me to the school for the blind.

“And after that,” I conclude, “I eventually realized I just couldn’t rely on other people. Maybe that sounds stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” she says. “I’ve had a hard time trusting people, too, because… well, I was bullied a lot when I was a kid.”

I pause, waiting for her to elaborate. “You want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

It’s quiet again, and eventually she says, “Do you want me to take your picture?”

“With bandages over my eyes?”

“Just in case you want to look back and see what you looked like before.”

“Not really, thanks. But can I take a picture?” I ask.

“Of what?”

“Anything. How about my savory wall?”

“All right.”

I hold the camera in front of me, and she flips out the monitor so she can see the picture. She directs my aim and takes my hand in hers, guiding it to the lens. She lets go so I can adjust the focus myself, but I wish she had kept her hand on mine.

“Rotate slowly, slowly, right there. Now press with your pointer finger.”

I do and hear the familiar snap of the shutter.

? ? ?


That night, I barely sleep. When I do, I dream about Cecily. I can see her, and it’s very strange because I’m not actually seeing. Still, this one feels different from my usual dreams, which are just hallucinated representations of my everyday experience, loosely chronological narratives of touch, sound, and smell.

Dad takes the day off so he and Mom can accompany me to the hospital. Which must suck for him, using a vacation day to go hang out at his place of work.

The three of us sit in a waiting room for a while. Mom fills out my paperwork. I wonder what it will be like when I can fill out my own paperwork. I hear Dad shuffling through the newspaper. I imagine how it will feel to read with my eyes. I run my fingers over the upholstery of my chair and wonder what color it is. Sure, I could ask Mom. Or I could use my iPhone app that identifies colors. But that’s not the point. I don’t actually care what color the chair is. I just want to be able to determine it at a glance. Like a normal person.