All Five Senses

All Five Senses

The Last One That Can See

#flashfiction

When I attempt to explain how it feels to be me, few understand. Actually, no one. The heft, the weight of my burden is more than anyone will ever experience.  I don't expect others to understand me or what it feels like, and I am afraid I have stopped trying to impress on them the difficulty I face daily.  I no longer attempt to even drop hints that I can see them. That I can see them and they can't see me.  To be the last one left with vision is no longer amazing. It is so very heartbreaking.

Yes.  Possessing all five senses is an actual gift, and I am fully aware that others wish they could be me.  But to be the only one that has functioning eyes? I still do not understand how it is possible.  I had intra-ocular lenses placed in my eyes in my late thirties when cataracts and glaucoma threatened my vision.  For some reason, the plastic lenses protected me from losing my vision when the ocular virus started to spread.  When I turned on the news and heard about the thousands of a people a day that would loose their sight instantly, I gasped as I believed that it was only a matter of time and I would face the same fate.  That fate wasn't mine.  Every person I saw, every person I came into contact with, every person I love, lost their sight. And I visually witnessed it all.  I never came to understand why there was an viral outbreak and why I was the only one immune to the globe crossing ocular virus. Now I believe, some things are better left unknown.

I would sit, silently, watching. Everyone who walked by me on the street would nervously pass me. Can she see? Should we ask for help?  I was able to tell that they could sense my physical presence even when they could not see me. I had free reign of the grocery store until the food trucks stopped coming to town. No one stands in line for food when you can't find where the lines are even being formed. People, desperate people, stumbling trying to find someone who can help, someone who can direct them to food and water. I was wounded severely once when I thought I could be the one to help a group of mom's with young children.  They clamored at me, reaching, grabbing, wanting my attention, wanting my help instantly.  Bruised and bleeding as if I had been in an alley attack, I limped back home.  I couldn't admit to someone I could see.  If I did, I would be risking my own life.  I had the one thing everyone in the world needed. The ability to see.

When the phones, televisions and Internet stopped working, it was one thing. But eventually radio silence.  Those that had the manual capability to reach out by transistor radio eventually stopped doing so also.  Did they give up hope?  Did the depression hit so quickly that they no longer saw a purpose in creating and fostering human connections?  When staying home, in self confined jails became too much to fathom, the loss of life was no longer measurable.  No one had the physical means after a month to even attempt to tend to the dead.  So there they lay. Where they decided their life would end. Floating in the rivers.  Rotting in their homes.  Stretched out if napping on the stairs of the church where they once went to Worship on Sundays.

I knew that I needed to flee. I would risk my mental stability by living alone, rather than my physical life by staying where everyone would eventually want to take advantage of the most horrible gift anyone could possess.  The gift of sight on a non seeing planet wasn't a gift but a torment.  I had every book at my disposal.  I read and made notes and tore out page after page from the books left abandoned at the library.  I would teach myself to grow food. To hunt. To build anything I would need.  To possibly figure out if I was capable to create energy which could be turned into electricity which could be turned into light.  I gathered batteries. I gathered wires, I gathered seeds and containers for water. I made time lines and plans as to what I would need to accomplish and when. My plans were foiled when sickness took hold.  Maybe pneumonia. I am not really sure.  I was about a week away from preparing to leave town when I was racked with severe coughing.  There wasn't a doctor that I could see, and I wouldn't even know if there were medications nearby that I could get my hands on.

So here I lie. In my bed.  Dozing.  In and out of consciousness.  This has taken me two days to write this down. Not sure who I am writing it down for. I know this sickness will end me.  If this notebook is found, who will be able to see it? Who would read the words on this page and be so flabbergasted at the fact that I am the last person with sight? No, someone will find it by searching with their hands for anything that is useful. This notebook will turn into paper to fuel a fire. Fire to keep someone warm. Until they decide that the church stairs seem like a mighty fine place to...