Taking Away a Blind Man’s Eyes
A blind man and his stick
I imagined if he gorged my eyes out.
Steadily walking uphill, almost midway between my current workplace and where I rest my head on most nights, I wondered if he could lock me down, and stick his fingers into my eyes in raging fury.
For days, I wondered what it would feel like if a blind man had his stick snatched away from him. This evening, I imagined if my vision was not just lost but forcibly taken away from me. The kind of trauma that has no remedy.
Luckily for me, I have my glasses. They could protect me. Only temporarily, at least.
I was from having one of the most shocking incidences in my working life, and the possibility of a brother blaming me for having lost a sister and then consequently pinning down me in a choke-hold. And gorging my eyes out.
The reality of almost losing the patient twice was settling in.
It took me back to when I was in my second year on campus, in one of the basketball tournaments. We were representing Babadogo Catholic Church. Our team comprised anyone who could dribble a ball and at the very least had some idea about the rules of basketball.
One of our opponents comprised Sudanese players— tall, slender, and to my surprise, stout. Their upper bodies were chiseled out of marble. I’m not talking about bones — I’m talking about muscle. They were a tough lot, but we won the game. Later, one of my team members told me that I had scored the basket that took us to the next level. But my muscles were too sore to even care.
That evening, I had lost a patient, and I imagined if the next of kin were to react out of grief. I am over six feet tall, but the brother was inches taller. I do calisthenics workouts, but I could not match the genetics of a guy who only reminded me of the challenge I had when I was playing for my home team in 2016.
For a moment, I imagined my life without eyes.
Oh yeah, I was born with a pair
Of eyes. But what if I lost them?
A loss ain’t a loss it’s a lesson
Toph Beifong was my favourite character in the popular animation series — The Last Air Bender.
I loved her because she was blind but never let the blindness stop her from seeing. She could see just as bats do, using a unique form of echolocation.
It takes patience to see through vibrations. They made it look like it was slow, but we all know sound travels fast in solids. She must have been fast. Slowing down Toph’s moves puts it into perspective to illustrate how the blind could harness other senses to make accurate images of what surrounds them.
Inspired by her, I asked myself what sense I would prefer losing.
Not taste. I enjoy my meals. I take time with my meals. As the entertainment captain, I recall when I once got zapped by one of the naked wires in my office in high school. I felt the shock flow to the tip of my tongue. That morning, the white, fermented porridge, a drink I learned to love, lacked taste. No, I wouldn’t want to lose my sense of taste.
I wouldn’t want to lose my sense of smell because taste is linked to taste. A meal that tastes good prepares your tongue. I once conversed with a patient who had lost the sense of taste for two weeks. Her love for cooking faded within that period. Since I also love cooking, I wouldn’t wish to lose my sense of smell.
Hearing is perhaps the sense I value the most. I can sit and listen to almost any sound anywhere and get moved by how sound emerges and merges from the most unexpected of places. Listening to the subtle contexts of beats is also one of my favourite pastimes. No, hearing would not cut it.
Touch would take away my sense of spatial orientation. I wouldn’t even know what my hands, the extensions we use to mould our space, felt. Plus, Toph already showed us how she feels her way through the world.
That left me with sight. If I were to lose any of my five senses, it would have to be sight. I would still enjoy my meals, I would have my music, and my tactile sensation would appreciate the outlines and contours of the lady who would still wish to be with me if I turned blind.
It would kill me that I wouldn’t have a chance to read books. I have a library of unread works that continue to humble me. I will never finish them. But robbing me of my eyes brings this fear into reality.
In my rearview mirror, objects is further than they appear
— Jay-Z
It would, however, be a lesson.
My story is too wide to fit inside the line
Or any other line I will ever write.
Words are attempts to make abstract ideas into concrete forms. But as someone once told me:
Sidhani unaweza elewa
True, I don’t think I will ever undersand.
A simple analogy from physics makes it clear. Converting one useful energy to another has some element of loss of useless energy. A car will take you from one point to another, but it will make some exhaust gas which it renders useless.
It is difficult to convert one form of sensation to another. Making sense of a mime or sign language is different from someone who speaks their message.
Life happens in more than one sensation. From the moment when the cold glass of Sprite parses your lips, and the drink spears through your tongue, as it sizzles up to your palate on a hot day, what you have is not just taste. Taste the feeling? No. It’s more.
When a sphere tries to explain to a circle what kind of life it is missing, the circle can only imagine. Despite being embodied in three dimensions, the sphere sees life in two dimensions. The circle sees life in one dimension.
Now imagine one of the dimensions of the sphere is taken away. It’s like taking a stick from a blind person.
The stick is the blind person’s eyes. My eyes can get gorged out or I can be a burns victim and fail to see the next sunrise. But the blind person has something we will never have — a replaceable stick.
You can rob the blind person of their eyes, but they will surely get another one. It’s not even a pair. It’s a single one, and they will be right back at it. They could have developed a bond with the one that was taken away, but it’s nothing like what we can experience if we lose our eyesight.
For a writer, you won’t get to see a line.
Your eyes will be gone.
Forever.
Will your partner love you now that you don’t get to see their beauty gel with age as the two of you grow old?
Will you relish the beautiful Sarcodes sanguinea as it sharply contrasts with its surroundings?
Will they get to see how a teardrop forms from the edge of the eye, steadily following the facial contours until it departs from a cleft chin?
The other senses cannot express these visuals. It’s there in the name — visuals.
But what the blind experience, too, cannot be converted into another useful form of energy, for us to fully get the story they have to say.
What I’m trying to say…
We can live in the shadows, and in the darkness when deprived of the ability to see. But because you’re not, you live differently. Experience differently.
When your sight is taken away, the loss will be a lesson for not richly enjoying what you can presently see.
You see?
Living in the shadow
Can you imagine what kind of life it is to live?
In the shadows people see you as happy and free
Because that’s what you want them to see
Living two lives, happy, but not free
You live in the shadows for fear of someone hurting your family or the person you love
The world is changing and they say it’s time to be free
But you live with the fear of just being me
Living in the shadow feels like the safe place to be
No harm for them, no harm for me
But life is short, and it’s time to be free
Love who you love, because life isn’t guaranteed
Smile
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