It’s always tricky to write about someone who has a disability. Love might be accused of being blind, but the man who is at the heart of this story is actually blind.
Blindness isn’t the disability I am referring to, of course. It’s the love part.
So the man in question sat across from his friend trying to explain why he wouldn’t erase a few old photos of his ex-girlfriend he still had on his phone.
“They are all I have left of her,” he stated earnestly.
“I know… but you can’t actually see them,” he friend replied awkwardly.
“You don’t understand,” the blind man said, slowly shaking his head.
“What I do understand is that your new girlfriend will be pissed if she finds them on your phone.”
A pained expression crossed the face of the blind man. I’ve always felt that blind people exaggerate their facial expression for some reason and this example did nothing to dispel that opinion.
His friend continued. “They are the only three photos on your phone. Eventually, she’ll find them and I’m not sure how you could possibly explain them away.” His friend paused to see if his counsel was having any effect. He wasn’t sure so he added, “Honestly, I don’t understand why you would risk the relationship over something that you can’t even see. She left you. Move on. You’re being stubborn.”
“Of course I am. Love is a lot of things and stubborn is near the top of the list.”
“But it’s over,” his friend countered.
“Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off!” the blind man bellowed unexpectedly in his best Rambo voice. I’ve always felt that blind people exaggerate their Sylvester Stallone impressions for some reason and this example did nothing to dispel that opinion.
The other man didn’t know what to say. It didn’t help that the blind man was holding his Sylvester Stallone face for far too long. The right side of his mouth continued to droop slightly and the image forced his friend to turn away.
Finally, he continued in his effort to make the blind man see the potential dangers of keeping the pictures on his phone. “What about your new girl? She has the passcode to your phone. It would hurt her if she found the pictures. Don’t you care about her?”
Blind Rambo thought about it for a moment. “I do care about her. But I love my ex.”
While his friend could tell how sincere he was, he was unnerved by the fact that the blind man was still talking like Rambo. “Can you stop… doing that… Rambo thing?” he inquired politely.
What came next from the heartsick blind man was delivered in an accent that was half Rambo and half Malayalam. Both you and his friend can be forgiven for not knowing that the quote he launched into was from Arundhati Roy, a 62-year-old Indian woman. One could argue that the overall impact of the quote, in the manner that it was conveyed, fluctuating between Sylvester and Arundhati, was either terribly poignant or terribly disturbing. It was without question terribly something.
“To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”
When he was done delivering the quote the right side of his mouth continued to droop slightly. His friend, in the grips of something terribly something, took his friend’s phone and once again looked at the images of the woman that haunted him. Who had even taken them and why? Part of him wished that he could feel so much for another person.
Part of him was relieved that he never had.
Later in the week, the blind man’s new girlfriend was idly looking at an odd text that had been delivered to his phone from his friend. It said “In the field, we had a code of honor, you watch my back, I watch yours.” It suddenly occurred to her that while her boyfriend could use the screen reader feature to read texts he wouldn’t have any actual pictures on his phone. Being this was her first time with a blind man, she punched in his passcode to confirm as much.
The folder was empty. “Of course it is,” she laughed to herself and put the phone back down.