Sight

“This isn’t working!” Tommy slammed his fist onto the floor, coddling it immediately after as he hit a rock. Tears oozing from his eyes, “It just won’t work,” he seethed and climbed back onto his feet, turned around and pounded towards the back door, running into the wooden stair railing. There he paused, quivering before using the railing as a guide to lead him up through the back door. At least he managed to thrust it shut with a satisfying thud.

   Tila yearned to follow him, her heart ached for his struggles, wished she suffered his affliction instead. An accompanying burn swelled because he gave up so quickly now and she knew it was because of her parents. At first they were supportive, but now they increasingly coddled Tommy, pushing him further into his desperation and hopelessness. All the time they told him not to worry, that they would always be there for him, could take care of him. Tommy interpreted it as he couldn’t do anything for himself anymore.

   But they should instead be finding ways to help him regain some of his independence. Before all this, all he ever wanted to do was own his own restaurant when he grew up, but now all he does is listen to food shows while crying. Not even telling him about Chef Johnny, a successful yet blind restaurant owner eased his pain.

   Tila lost the tug of war with her parents as her last solution fizzled out into the air and the anger burned and writhed inside her like a blazing worm wriggling through her insides. Pulling at fistfuls of her hair, she screamed and stomped her foot down on the soft soil.

   The world pulsed around her, echoing in her brain.

   Tila froze, her frustration forgotten. Unsure of what just happened her arms fell limp at her sides and she turned in her spot, examining her backyard. But the issue laid inside her, now running with her blood and told it her to do it again, so she did.

   Waves from the impact spread out from beneath her foot. The first waves bounced off her other foot almost immediately, coming back calloused and scratchy and tickled her ankle. Next, waves from the house, solid and unyielding hit the left side of her foot and from the right came more solid waves but with the slight give of moisture from the trees. Stunned, she remained motionless as the information reverberated through her brain, creating a map of her surroundings in her mind’s eye. She did it once more to ensure what she was experiencing was real, that these vibrations really went out and back to her through the earth, unlike the clicks of echolocation. Her feet and head tingled as she let the information come through her once again, showing her the same surroundings as her eyes did.

   She ran through the house to her room. Standing in the center, she closed her eyes, took in a slow, deep breath and stomped her foot, this time on the hardwood floor. The waves went out from her foot, scattered out and up the walls that surrounded her room, spread into Tommy’s room on the other side of the wall, vibrations soaked up from the clothes that littered the floor like a carpet, some made it up his bed and into Tommy although he remained unaware. Tila could see the room in her head. She stepped again, this time focusing on the waves moving out from her window and bouncing back from he concrete driveway that lay on the other side.

   This was it! She thought and ran over to Tommy’s room, bursting through the door without knocking.

   “Go.”

   But Tila had already pulled Tommy off his bed, “No, please, I think this will work. Please just try it and if it doesn’t work I promise I won’t bother you again.”

   “You really promise?” He raised an eyebrow.

   Tila cleared a spot on the floor, “I promise, but you have to really try.”

   “Fine.”

   Tila instructed him on what to do and pay attention for. He obediently stomped his foot down on the hardwood floor, but his face did not betray what he experienced, if anything. Shifting weight between her feet, Tila waited for him to say something, but he only stomped his foot again.

   “I don’t see anything Ti,” he admitted flatly.

   “Okay,” Tila forced her disappointment down, “Grab my hand,” she ordered, swiftly catching his wrist.

   They tried a few more times, stomping their feet together, having Tommy step on her feet, jumping and slamming both their feet down, but Tommy’s patience expired rapidly.

   “Well that’s that then. Thanks anyway,” he added as he sulkily crawled back into bed.

   Leaving the room defeated, she slunk back to her room and searched online for what she had done, but could find nothing except the echolocation. For the next few days she stomped her foot upon the ground and always felt that map vibrating in her brain, with or without shoes, alone or with other people present, and even with forceful stomps or light taps.

   As Tila became more acquainted with the ability she also had to face that it was unnatural. This wasn’t some skill she had a surprising affinity for, not some bat born for echolocation. With this reality in mind, she promised herself she would no longer use it since it would only lead to trouble, but she only lasted a day. The ability freed her, opened up her mind to so many more things existing and occurring around her, Tile became a part of so many secrets and that was a secret in itself. And as far as she could tell, no one knew or had this ability and so it was uncharted territory which she could learn and explore all her own with no one else interjecting.

   One day, as she attempted to visualize the whole house, she created enough noise that Tommy woke from the couch. She sensed his bare feet plop onto the floor, information freely sent to her. She rapidly thought of many excuses while monitoring soft patter of his feet on the floor increase in intensity and speed until he knocked on her door.

   “What are you doing?” He asked, “You’re making a lot of noise.”

   “Nothing, just trying to kill a spider. Here I’ll help back to the living room,” she offered, going to grab his arm, but he snatched it away.

   “No. No, you’ve been doing something weird for a long time. I can hear it, I hear you stomping around like an elephant or something. What are you doing? If it’s about me, stop. You said you’d stop. This is just what I gotta deal with now and you can’t help me.”

   “I told you I’m not doing anything. I promised.”

   “Yeah, but then what are you doing?”

   “Nothing.”

   “Tell me or I’m telling mom!”

   Tila huffed and pulled him into her room and committed to a reckless choice. “I… That day I asked you to stomp your foot on the floor, it was because… because I had tried it and I could… See everything around me. I’ve been trying to figure it out so I could teach you, but I don’t know what this is.”

   “That sounds crazy.”

   “I know, but it’s true.”

   He shook his head and dug his fingernails into his knees, “And you just stomped your foot on the floor? What happened? What exactly did you see?”

   Tila recounted what happened that day she obtained her power and watched Tommy’s eyes fill with tears.

   “So now you can see everything with your eyes and your feet?”

   “Yeah, but-“

   “And I’m still useless,” he seethed.

   Tila reached out for him, but he hopped off the bed and left. She stayed on her bed, sitting in her shame. Every day she asked, why me? Why not Tommy? And every day she came no closer to any answers about any of this. That night she tossed and turned for a long while before finally falling into a fitful sleep. Her last thought was wondering whether or not she would be better off dead.

   After that conversation, Tommy didn’t mention it again, even more, he stopped talking to her all together. Tila took to practicing in the woods or some of the abandon buildings in town, convinced if she kept moving forward she would discover the answers she sought. It was a useful distraction to her at the very least. However, one evening when she came home from another session after class, she found Tommy and their parents sitting at the kitchen table. Tension seized the air. Tila entered on high alert, heart pounding and hairs prickling on the back of her neck. She imagined this was what an intervention felt like.

   “What have you been doing?” Her mom asked.

   “I hung out with some friends after class.”

   “No,” her mom sighed, “What have you been doing with your feet? What did your brother tell us about? We thought you of all people cared about your brother but you’ve gone and played this cruel joke.”

   “What? This isn’t a joke!” Tila protested without thinking.

   “Well what is it then?” Her father asked.

   Tila looked at Tommy, wishing from the core of her being that she never told him, that she realized the consequences from the beginning. But here, now, she didn’t want to appear to be a liar in front of her family. And they were her family, she should have nothing to lose.

   Under the cold stare of her parents she replied, “I don’t know what it is, but it’s real,” she stated, barely more than a whisper.

   For a moment they remained motionless, like porcelain dolls, and when Tila said no more, professed no other truth, they began badgering her again. Tila endured their accusations, remaining resolute in her truth. They kept on until Tommy intervened.

   “If you don’t believe her, maybe we can test her.”

   And so they did. It was the first time in months that her parents took one of Tommy’s suggestions to heart and Tommy smiled for the first time in months, all at her expense. Determined, she put up with it and played the game of her father hiding a stuffed animal in different rooms in the house while Tila, blindfolded in the back yard, accurately told her mom and Tommy where he hid it every time. In the end they tentatively accepted what she told them, but it only served to isolate her further. Her parents took to avoiding her as well and all of them tried to tread as softly as they could around the house. It only took a couple weeks before Tila decided to leave. She wanted to believe they would accept her no matter what, as they had Tommy, but it seemed not.

   So, she left it all behind. She packed a bag with a few essentials and sentimental possessions that she earned throughout her life and snuck out after they all went to bed. Before leaving, Tila debated leaving a note, but decided against it. They probably preferred if she just vanished. So that night she stole away for the bus station with tears falling from her eyes.