Blind

“Are you there, God? It’s me…” Alice whispered.

Her knees pinched on the polished timber flooring of her bedroom, but the expensive linen sheets under her elbows were a soft reprieve. The rough callouses of her palms pressed together, her overused hands finding a brief recess with only each other to sense. It’s something no one ever told you about being blind, how abused your hands would become.

“I’m here, Alice.” God said, his commanding voice reverberating from above.

She laughed with joy, soft tears running from her clouded and broken eyes. So grateful to hear his words again.

“I thought you had abandoned me…” she breathed through a wide smile. A smile that faltered when the silence stretched long.

“You need not fear,” the lord finally said, “I will always be with you. Even when I do not speak.”

Alice pressed her forehead into the back of her intertwined thumbs. Of course.

“I’m sorry. I promise my faith is not so weak. It’s true, you’re right. I am afraid. Of so many things now. Since I lost my sight all I have known is darkness…I feel so alone sometimes. Your voice is such a light and comfort to me. It makes me so happy to hear it again!”

“You are not alone, Alice. I am here” He said.

The simple words filled her with an internal warmth she had long missed. The grief-tears over her loss had stopped at a point that she no longer remembered, but the pain of it was still there. Always inside. His voice was the only thing that brought her any true comfort. She just wished she could understand, why sometimes God chose to speak to her, and why other times he seemed completely absent. But hers was not to question powers beyond her comprehension. Instead she basked in the warmth that was rising across her face. This one, she knew, and it was very much external. Right on queue, one of her alarms rang, to tell her the sun was rising and it was time to begin her day. God, at least, would be with her through it this time.

After running her hands through her clothes and picking out the shirt with the buttons down the front and a comfortable pair of jeans, Alice got dressed. She took up a brush from her nightstand and ran it through her hair with a practised touch, then followed the wooden chair rails along her hallway to the kitchen. Second door on the right and seven steps from the bedroom door frame. The house was new. It was a worse neighbourhood than before, and the process of selling up and moving had been a nightmare. Her limited grasp of braille had made reading and signing legal contracts a challenge. She only hoped that the agreement she had put her name to, meant she actually owned her home. It was all worth it in the end though, to never have to worry about stairs again. When she came to the kitchen, she pushed forward her hand, reaching for a handle that wasn’t there. Grabbing at nothing. It was strange. She always closed the doors. This one was open. Brushing it off as a lapse, she followed the counter tops to the kettle and began the laborious process of making her morning coffee and laying out some breakfast. A task that had once been like breathing. She made an extra portion of toast, placing it to one side. Her new circumstances had left money tight. She had little to give to the church anymore, but God had reassured her through her prayers, that offering a tithe of sacrifice, need not mean cash.

“Dear God, please accept this offering.” She whispered.

She was grateful when her meagre gifts were always accepted, disappearing from the counter by the time she had finished eating. That morning, was no exception.

The compensation and disability allowance covered her essentials. There wasn’t much left for luxuries, but it kept her alive. She hadn’t yet thought of a job she could realistically do. The mere thought of returning to the place that had stolen her life, spiked a tight panic in her chest. She veered away from thoughts of the future and instead picked up her coffee cup and traced her fingers around the kitchen to the back door. Stepping out into the morning sun’s heat and a din of birdsong, she sighed with relief. It was always better to be in natures cathedral, and the garden was one of the main reasons she had chosen this particular house. She fumbled her way to the patio chairs and dropped herself down into the closest one, resting her head back and feeling the sun on her face. There was a time she would have squinted at the light. No more.

“God? Are you with me?” She asked.

“I’m here, Alice” He replied, his deep voice coming from all around, echoing from the natural world and bouncing across the paving slabs.

“If I ask you something, will you give me an honest answer?”

“Always.”

“Why did I never hear your guidance…before? When I could see? I have always had my faith, always prayed for your word. Never did you respond.”

“Perhaps you put too much emphasis on your eyes, and too little on your ears” He said. The direction of his voice changing. He seemed closer.

“Is that why you will not repair the damage? Is this a lesson?”

“You know why…”

She dropped her head, a mannerism she still held, from when she used to avert her eyes.

“I trust in your plan, and I do not regret this new ability. But I do miss seeing the leaves on the trees, and the light on the water...”

She did not hear him again. He never answered her self pity. Alice took a last swig of her coffee, which had grown closer to cold than was pleasant, and pushed the mug onto the side table she knew would be there. The clink of another mug against hers made her jump. She usually took her cups inside. She must have missed one.

The abrasive ring of her phone interrupted the peace of the bird’s symphony. The obnoxious robotic voice that was programmed to tell her what was on the screen announced that it was the dog people calling. Again. She had told them so many times that she didn’t want an assistance animal. She had prayed on it and the Lord had spoken. She could do this on her own. Rather than trusting the voice commands, that usually answered by mistake when she wanted to hang up, she simply let it ring out. One day they would give up on trying to convince her. Eventually, she tired of sitting still and made her way back inside, following the route she knew was safe. As she let the back door fall, it bounced, making an unusual sound. Softer than she expected from the door frame. She had come to learn in great detail the sounds of every movable thing in her house. On the second hit, it clicked closed, and she knew it was secure. Alice traced her way to the lounge, skimming her fingers along the wallpaper. She knew every seam and lip of it. Thankfully, it wasn’t the textured kind. All she knew of it was that it was a floral pattern. A bold choice, considering the previous owner had been a middle-aged man. When she arrived, she made herself comfortable and flicked on the stereo, which picked up where she’d last left her audio book. Damned if she didn’t miss the spectacle of movies, but it was the closest she would ever get to a distraction again.

Alice managed a few hours of whats-his-face trying to garner the attention of miss generic, before she found her mind wandering back to her own predicament. She closed her eyes, out of habit, rather than necessity and asked another question of her God.

“How can I ever have a life of meaning again?” She spoke upward, leaning her head back against the couch cushions, “I used to be ambitious. I used to have dreams and goals. Now I just stumble around this house, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Nothing beyond existing anyway. What is your plan for me? What possible end could this all have?”

“You already do more good than you know. Life is complex, your impact on it subtle.” He replied.

“So you’re not going to tell me?” she asked, smirking.

“At the end of the path, you will look back and understand” he said. She could have sworn he sighed. Did God have infinite patience to go with omnipotence? She didn’t know.

Alice decided to leave her questioning, just in case, and moved on to lighter subjects.

“I need to call my sister,” she muttered, not in prayer, but simply stating her thoughts, “Otherwise she will never stop bothering me. Maybe I should just give in and let her come stay for a while.”

“NO!” A resounding command from her God. “This path is yours to take, and yours alone!”

Alice’s brow furrowed in confusion. God had never spoken to her in such a way before, nor ever outside of her prayers. But his word was absolute.

“Sorry.” She said, “I didn’t think.”

Alice was glad that her parents were no longer around to see what had happened to her. Happy, that they did not have to endure that pain. She did miss her sister though. It would have been good to hear her voice. In a fit of nostalgia, she took to her feet and counted the steps across the room to the tall cabinet. She knelt and opened one of the bottom drawers, pulling out an old box of photographs. She had always had a soft spot for the real thing and wished she had taken more time to look at them…before. The feel of their glossy, sticky paper would be a comfort, even if she couldn’t see the images of her childhood. Running her fingers over the top of the box she felt the fluffy, gritty dust that had collected there. Turning, she blew as hard as she could to clear the mess of it.

Someone sneezed.

Alice froze for a millisecond, before continuing to the coffee table and placing down the box. She opened the lid, ran her fingers over the pictures and feigning a sigh of frustration she slammed the lid down and pushed the box away.

You’re mad that you can’t see. Be angry.

She had plenty of practice at despair. She jumped to her feet and stormed across the room, catching her knee on the corner of the coffee table as she went, which ignited her anger for real. She paced her way quickly down the hallway to the bedroom and slammed the door immediately behind her. She pressed her back to it, breathing hard. Before remembering something and rushing to her bedside table. Ripping open the drawer, she pulled out the long kitchen knife she had hidden there on one fear filled night of blindness and storm-fuelled rattling windows. Turning, she gripped it in a white fist and held it up. She tracked the barely audible sound of air displacing, as the door slowly opened.

How could she have been so foolish.

Had she really been so vulnerable? To believe so easily? Alice wanted to scream at her gullibility. The pit in her stomach threatened to engulf her.

God did not return prayers. Only charlatan’s offered answers.

There was someone living in her house.