Puzzle Pieces (formerly Reach for the Sky)

Chapter 15

On the last day of school, I walk out the building in a daze, hours after everyone has already left. I get extra time to complete my final exams because an aid has to read every question to me, but spending five hours on each exam is much more exhausting than simply being under time pressure.

Thoroughly tired as I am, I don't notice Hope's insistent tugging until it is too late. I trip over the curb, almost regaining my balance until my heavy backpack pulls me over and I land face down in the grass. My backpack slides forward on my shoulders, pinning down my arms and driving my face further into the ground.

Hope tries nudging the backpack off of me, and upon discovering she can't budge it, she begins to whine, giving my face a few worried licks. "It's okay, Hope. I'm okay," I reassure her as I struggle weakly, finally succeeding in rolling over into a sitting position. Hope happily presses her nose into my palm, her wagging tail thumping against my leg.

I begin to giggle, then laugh so hard I can't stop, even when the tears start running down my face, at my ridiculous clumsiness and malevolent backpack. And that is how Henry found me a few moments later, sitting in the grass, laughing like a maniac.

"Long day?" he asks, amusement in his voice.

"I'm so tired– I think– I'm going– insane," I respond between giggles, vaguely aware that if I had any energy left in me I would be mortified right now.

"I wouldn't disagree," he teases.

I finally succeed in calming down to an almost normal state. "So what are you still doing here?"

"My mom can't pick me up till two," he replies. "And you?"

"I've been taking an exam for five hours. Every time I lose focus or want to hear a question again, the aid has to read me the whole question, all four answers, and possibly the entire passage all over again, if it's a question based off of an article."

"What a nightmare!" Henry answers. A few moments pass in silence before he asks, "What's it like, being blind?"

I blink, startled. "I... No one's ever asked me that before. I've been blind all my life, so blindness doesn't seem as much like a disability as vision seems like a superpower. One that everyone else has, and I don't."

"Isn't it the same thing? A disadvantage for you or an advantage for everyone else?"

"No. I don't feel my lack of sight as a burden. It's just... That's the way I am, and that's the way I'll always be. The only thing I wish sometimes is that I knew what colors looked like."

"What do you think... I mean, what comes to mind when you hear red, or blue, or brown?"

"Well... I know the basics of colors, like that apples are red, the sky is blue, and my hair is brown. But I still have my own ideas of colors, perceived in the senses I know: touch, sound, and sometimes even smell.

"Red is the feeling of running a finger over a piece of sandpaper with very fine grains of sand, so that you feel the roughness and the heat from the friction without sanding off bits of your finger. Orange feels like plunging a hand into a bucket full of little pieces of rubber, with their texture that's somehow smooth and rough at the same time. Yellow is the warm sun on your face and a blanket so soft you can barely tell you are touching it. Green is when the wind picks up, rustling the leaves on the trees to create that sshhSHSHsshh sound before dying down again. Blue is the smell of salt as a brisk wind blows in from the sea. And purple is the feeling of holding a small, furry, animal, like a rabbit or cat, feeling its warm, fuzzy weight in your arms."

"You could be a poet," Henry said after a moment's pause. "I can almost feel the colors right now." I'm saved from trying to form a reply by the sound of a car driving into the parking lot. "That's my mom," says Henry, jumping up. "See you soon, at practice!" The sounds of the engine grow fainter as the car leaves the parking lot, leaving me to wonder how I would view the world if I could see.