It’s dark as I write this. It’s been dark for a long time. I catch things at the corner of my vision, but they’re blurred as if they’ve been half-heartedly erased. I used to rely on my roommate Pat to describe my atmosphere before he left. They assured me that the surgery, while still in trial, would be perfectly safe. I can’t argue that they’re wrong as I feel physically well besides the blindness. I do wish my sense of smell would finally go for good though.
I’d been in therapy for years, but it never worked. The diagnoses grew and changed; some came back while others went away entirely as I cycled through treatments. The point is that no one seemed to know what my problem was. I couldn’t handle anything even slightly distressing and no number of interventions could fix it. I was rendered immobile by the sight of roadkill off the side of the road. I dissolved into hysterics if I felt a stranger gave me a “look.” My face in the mirror, distorted and ugly, rendered me catatonic. I’m sure you’ll recognize that these are not inherently very traumatic experiences. I’ll let you imagine how I reacted when presented with actual obstacles or traumas.
As a result of my apparent inability to function, my uncle took pity on me (or my mother, depending on how you looked at it) and let me move into a property he managed and out of my mother’s house. His only stipulation was that I have a roommate so that I didn’t “become a total neurotic” as he so kindly put it. He even went as far as to find Pat on Craigslist for me to room with, apparently unconvinced I was able to on my own. Pat even came with his own cat, my uncle told me eagerly as if advertising a Barbie with its own accessories. I was a problem that my family dealt with for far too long and it was clear they were eager for me to “spread my wings.”
The house itself was not in great shape. It had “character” which is normally something people say when a place looks like it has lead paint. It had once been attractive, sporting a large bay window in the front and even a turret. My uncle bought it with the intention of cutting it up into apartments to entice students of the nearby university. He abandoned it about halfway through. This was unsurprising as my uncle had difficulty sticking with most things, but Pat initially found it funny to joke about the house being haunted. The sheer distress of this left me bedridden for two weeks. Pat stopped joking about it.
One day Pat brought home a flyer from the bus stop he used.
“It’s some new therapy thing,” he explained. “It’s some kind of surgery to fix fear, I guess? I don’t know. I thought you might be interested.”
I can recognize that flyer on a bust stop is not the most ideal place to get your treatment recommendations, but what you don’t understand is that I had tried everything at that point. Everything. Talk therapy, EMDR, hypnosis, even ketamine-assisted treatment. None of it worked. This was a hail mary. I took it.
To be honest, I don’t remember much of the days leading up to the surgery. I do remember that Pat drove me. He seemed excited by the prospect of an easy fix to my neuroticism. I imagine living with me wasn’t the most enjoyable for him either. Regardless, he got me there and got me back safely. Was it eye surgery? Was it brain surgery? I don’t know. All I know is that after three days of healing, anything slightly distressing was scrubbed from my vision.
One morning I accidentally cut myself opening a can of food for the cat. I felt the sharp sting, but when I looked down I didn’t see a cut, or blood, or even my hand. It was a faintly skin-colored blur. Interesting. This continued on over the next few weeks. Small things were blurred out one day, then reappeared the next. My hand came back into view after a couple of days, now showing a small scar. I remember things declining when I found the cat dead.
To be fair, I’m not sure what it is I found. I stepped in something sticky outside of my bedroom door that morning. I looked down only to be met with a blur, slightly pink-colored. A strong metallic scent in my nose.
“Pat?” I called out.
He made his way blearily into the hallway, his face in focus and then instantly blurred out as he looked down at my feet.
“What the fuck? What did you do?” I heard, presumably from him.
“I… don’t know. I just came out and - what’s wrong?!”
“The fucking cat, you -”
And then the strangest thing happened; his voice went muffled. It sounded as if someone was extremely distressed, maybe two blocks away.
“I can’t - I can’t hear you,” I said, hopelessly.
More muffled… something, I guess, met my ears. I could only stand there helplessly. The figures moved in front of me and then gradually disappeared down the hallway. I could hear noises but not decipher them. I remained glued to my spot until Pat came back into view.
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice similar to every other time he talked me off a ledge. “I took care of it. Let’s just not worry, okay?”
I nodded. In addition to being frightened by everything, or perhaps because of it, I am also a coward. I did not ask him what happened. I did not want to know.
We went about our regular routine as best we could. Random things became increasingly more blurred though. Sometimes it would be a spot above the windowsill. Other times it was a corner in the kitchen. For almost a week, I could not see the ceiling in the bathroom. You have to understand, I so desperately wanted things to be okay. I didn’t want Pat to worry about me. I didn’t want to worry. I didn’t say anything about the spots. I heard things too. Always from far away. Once it sounded like a car accident as if heard from a helicopter far up in the air. I relied on Pat to tell me that things were okay when I heard things like that. He always said they were. It was an old house, he explained. Things groaned and creaked. They always had.
It was a dark morning. Or it could’ve been light. I wouldn’t know. Pat came into view, busting out of his bedroom. A blurred shape behind him. A strong, musty scent. A yelp sharply cut off into a distant, muffled noise. Pat went out of view.
I felt the familiar feeling of terror rising up in me. I once had a very new-age therapist tell me to visualize the fear and track its course in my body. I could feel it now, first in my stomach, then rising up past my ribs, burning like acid in my throat, then only a small, quiet voice in my ear, “don’t be afraid.”
And then, nothing.
As long as I’ve lived, I’ve never felt nothing.
Most things are a blur now. It does change from day to day. I’ve learned to distinguish some blurs from others. There are tints of colors, and the sizes change. A sound like a dull roar sometimes echoes through the house. Sometimes I startle awake in the morning to sharp screams. These are quickly dulled and fade into the background of my day. I wonder how long before I get used to that metallic scent. It’s the only thing that bothers me anymore.