A Man of His Senses

He was blind. It had come to him in a flash. From one moment to the next, everything was dark.

He stumbled through the room, tripping over the low table and falling hard to the ground. He didn't remember standing up. It hadn't even occurred to him to scream yet. He was too shocked. Seconds ago he had been sitting there, reading a book, when the whole world had suddenly shined brighter than a thousand suns, and then there was only darkness.

He laid there on the floor for a moment, groaning and clutching his leg where it had slammed into the table. He could feel something warm and slick on his leg. It burned under his hands. He closed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, despite his blindness. The pain in his leg momentarily drove his fear from his mind.

But as his thoughts cleared, and his vision did not, the fear returned. Something had happened. He tried to listen, to hear what was around him. It was then that he realized that there had been a sound of thunder when his sight went. All he could hear was a high ringing in his ears now.

Where was he now, in relation to the objects in the room? He rolled onto his side and felt a hard object stuck up against his back. He reached towards it with one hand and realized it was the entertainment center. He reached out tentatively with his foot. The pain of lengthening the muscles already knotting in his injured leg made him grown out loud again. His foot touched the edge of the table, now knocked at an angle from where it had sat in the middle of the room. He could feel the edges of the rug where they stopped covering the hard wood beneath. He was laying near the center of the room, with his feet towards the door.

He laid there for another minute. His phone had been sitting next to the couch where he had been reading. He rolled over onto his hands and knees and crawled towards the couch. Slowly feeling ahead of him with his hands as he crept across the floor, he felt the blanket hanging off the front of the couch in front of him. He worked his way, hand over hand, to the side of the couch he'd been sitting on. There was the end table. There, the phone.

He held it awkwardly in his hands, staring at it with his blind eyes. He knew what it looked like. He tried to form the image of it in his mind. It's thin black frame. The silver buttons. The blue light that emanated from its display. But no matter his efforts, he couldn't make his eyes see the phone he knew was there.

He could however, dial the numbers necessary. His hearing hadn't returned yet, so he decided to just dial 911. He pressed the numbers in, and hit the call button. He couldn't tell if anyone had answered, so he just cried out for help. He cried out in his darkness. He cried out in his silence.

He cried out in his fear.

He cried out for several minutes, and then dialed again. And again. The thought that in his state, there may be no one on the other end of the phone, and he may not even know it, was becoming a gnawing terror in his stomach.

He began to panic, and in his fear, to weep.

It was hard to determine the passage of time in that place. He never realized how much his perception of time was related to his ability to make sensory comparisons. He might have been laying there, weeping on the floor for minutes, or it could have been an hour, but slowly, some degree of rational thought returned.

If he was permanently blind and deaf, he was in trouble. Hell, even if it was only temporarily he was in trouble, but there was no way of knowing which it was yet. There was no way of knowing what had happened, and he had only the most limited ability to learn what was continuing to happen. Here, now, knowledge was the most important thing.

He tried to slow his breathing and lay still. He tried to get a feel for the room he was in. Other than the table moving when he tripped over it, everything seemed to be where he last remembered it. He couldn't feel any heat, so he didn't think there was a fire. He tried to feel for vibrations in the floor, but there didn't seem to be any. As far as he could tell, he was lying, alone, on his living room floor.

Then what had happened? What could have caused this? He had been reading a book before. He tried to think back, to remember things exactly as they happened. Had he heard the noise first, or seen the light? From which direction had it seemed to come?

It was no use. He thought he'd heard the noise, and then the light had flooded in from the big bay window in the front of the house, but it had all happened so fast, and he hadn't been looking for it. Besides, what good did such knowledge do him now?

No. That line of thought led to surrender. He would not surrender. He would survive. Whatever happened, he would get help, and he would be alright. He just needed to be calm.

He.

He.

Fear gripped him again. He what? What could he do? He'd called for help, but had no way to know if it had done any good. He thought he was safe, but who could tell? Was a fire about to consume his home? Would he be able to escape by the time he knew he was in danger? If it had been a gas line explosion, was it accompanied by a poisonous gas? Was he breathing death already?

He just didn't have the answers. He could move outside, he was sure he could find his way to the door, but would that improve his situation? He couldn't just lay outside on the ground and hope someone noticed. But he didn't have to lay in the floor either.

He moved to the couch and went back to rubbing his injured leg. He could feel the wetness drying and becoming a sticky film.

Blood then. It had to be. So, he was bleeding as well, although it didn't seem like a major wound, just a painful one.

Someone would come. If there was anyone else, if they were in better shape them him, someone would come. He had family who would want to make sure he was alright. Whatever had affected him had to have been a major incident. It had to be known. People had to be doing something. Even if he had to lay here for days, while he missed work, eventually someone would come.

But how long? How long yet? He had no way to know. He wouldn't know until they were right on top of him, and then, he wouldn't have anyway to know who they were. Fear began to eat at him again as he realized that it could be anybody. It could be someone trying to capitalize on unrest following whatever had happened. It could be looters. And he wouldn't know. He was completely defenseless, forced to rely on the aid of whoever came to help.

And that thought almost ruined him. Unless his senses returned, he would have to rely completely on others. Maybe forever. He had been a man of his senses. An eater. A lover. A reader. A musician. An artist. And unless his senses returned, it was all gone. All of it.

His world had disappeared in sound and fury, leaving nothing.