*drip*

*drip*

*drip*

Annoying.

*drip*

That leaky faucet is going to drive me insane.

*drip*

Aargh. It won't even let me wallow in self-pity.

*drip*

Damn it.

*sigh*

Can’t be helped. I force myself to get up from the sofa and walk towards the kitchen.

*clatter**clatter**clatter*

Ria walks up to me from the other side of the room, her claws striking against the linoleum.

I taught her to walk that way, instead of on the pads of her feet. It’s a desirable trait in a Guide Dog. It is helpful in forewarning their blind owners of their coming so they don’t get startled by them. She nudges me away from the obstacles in my path with her body as we make our way to the source of the annoyance.

*drip*

I fumble around the sink before my palm closes on the knob of the faucet and I twist hard.

Silence.

Finally.

Haha

Its so ironic, that silence can bring me joy so soon after losing my sight, I can’t help but chuckle slightly.

I focus on my hearing and the silence becomes less crowded, letting in the slight sounds of the evening traffic.My apartment faces the main road and the honking and sound of the traffic seems so loud now that I am focused on it. So many things go unnoticed because of the constant bombardment of information through our eyes.

I stretch out my hands, feeling the roughness of the wall through the skin of my fingertips.

Guided by Ria, I make my way to the living room window that faces the street. I fumble with its latch for a moment before throwing it open wide. The muffled sounds of the traffic immediately become clearer.

I take a deep breath of the fresh air…

*cough**hack**cough*

Yeah, right…

My brain must have grown soggy for me to even expect fresh air right above a busy main street. After hacking and coughing out my lungs in my body’s bid to rid them of the carcinogens, I finally settle down and lean against the grille, feeling the cool night breeze against my face.

*arf**arf*

Ria’s body pushes against me as she excitedly puts her forepaws on the sill and barks at the world with reckless abandon. It brings a smile to my lips, imagining her silly appearance as her tongue lolls out of her mouth as she announces herself to the world.

I take a sharp intake of breath as the burnt skin on my face splits due to the stretching. I can’t cry and now, even smiling hurts...

Maybe, I’d be good at poker.

.

My improving mood falls to the valley again. I scratch the back of Ria’s ears, drawing out an appreciative whine. She doesn’t deserve to be cooped up with me in this depressing atmosphere. I decide to take her out for a walk the next morning. With the anti-pollution mask and the sunglasses, I’ll just be another nameless, faceless member of the crowd.

At least it worked with the pizza delivery guy.

My nose twitches as I’m reminded of my diet for these few days. The smell of slightly rancid cheese assaults me along with the smoky taste of the urban air.

.

I straighten up my back.

Just because I lost my sight doesn’t mean that I should maltreat the rest of my senses. My taste buds are numb from the taste of pizza. My nose is complaining about the stench from the unclean state of my quarters and unwashed body. And I have been lounging around in my uncomfortable sofa for the entire week.

I slap my cheeks, hard.

The pain, from both the slap and the burn, shoots through me, jolting me from the haze I’d been living in for the past few days. I need to regain control of my life. If not for myself, then for Ria who has been forced to suffer along with me.

I shuffle my way to the sofa, using my feet to kick the discarded boxes that are lying around with it as the centre. Soon, Ria bounds over, barking excitedly as she thinks that it’s a new game. With her help, we soon have the discarded boxes gathered into a big pile. Bringing a garbage bag from the kitchen, I bag the pile and set it outside the door for the garbage man to pick up.

I step back into the room and take a deep breath.

The smell has grown a lot paler and the breeze from the open window is rapidly purifying the room.

I don’t know why… but a sense of accomplishment sets over me, diluting my depression. I whistle to Ria and we race each other to the kitchen, me trying my best to avoid all the furniture from memory.

She still wins, doubling back to prevent me from tripping over a stool.

I lean against the wall, panting hard.

Haha

Hahahaha

Haha*bark*ha*bark**arf*ha

I double over in laughter and Ria joins in.

The skin on my face stretches and the pain makes my laughter turn into wracking sobs.

.

Fuck.

.

It's been this way all week.

.

Fucking mood swings.

.

.

After a long time, I return to normal. Straightening up, I wash my hands at the sink with soap. Rummaging about blindly through the drawers of the kitchen, I take out a large bowl, the cutting board, my wooden spatula and a kitchen knife.

*whine*

Ria whines at me inquiringly as she pulls at my pants with her teeth to catch my attention. I can’t blame her… I did try to end it all with the knife a couple of days ago. If she didn’t sense my mood and start barking her head off…

Who knows…

I project my feelings of calm at her and she settles down, still keeping a wary eye on the implement.

I feel warmed by her concern.

Washing the bowl and the tools under the running water, I set them aside as I walk towards the refrigerator. I fumble around by memory for the eggs I knew I have sitting around in there on the second shelf.

I smell them for freshness… after all they are nearly a week old.

They seem fine as do the tomatoes in the bottom drawer. Grabbing a handful of coriander leaves, I walk back to the kitchen with my hands full, kicking the refrigerator door closed.

I crack the eggs into the bowl as best as I can, spilling some over its sides. I carefully chop up the tomatoes by putting my thumb on them and gliding the knife down the nail, drawing the nail back by the amount I want for the thickness of my slices.

I whistle and Ria barks letting me know her position. I throw a slice in her general direction, hearing the sound of her jaws snapping shut on them.

She barks happily at me.

She loves tomatoes… I always had to be careful of leaving the green ones lying around in the open as they are harmful to dogs. Ripe ones are fine though and the ones I am chopping are practically squishy.

Running the knife over them again, I have my diced tomato which I sweep into the bowl.

I carefully paw around in the spice cabinet until I lay hands on the weirdly shaped porcelain pot I keep my salt in. I remember buying it from a curio shop. It’s blue with cloud patterns in white painted on it.

Not that it matters now.

I sprinkle a pinch of salt in the bowl and twist the pepper grater a few times to boot. Placing the bowl on the induction plate, I switch it on. I stir the contents of the bowl with the wooden spatula as it cooks. I have no idea what setting the cooker is on so I wing it by the texture of the stuff.

The stuff is getting crumbly.

I switch off the heat and replace the spices in the cabinet and wash the utensils as it cools. Shredding the coriander further by hand, I put it into the bowl. Finding a spoon and washing it, I return to the living room with the sloppiest bowl of tomato scrambled egg I’ve ever made.

I’ve already fed Ria so I can enjoy the fruits of my labour without worries.

I sit down on the sofa and switch on the TV for the first time this week. The TV was a reminder of a world I would never be a part of again. That’s why I shied away from turning it on for the whole of this week. I had even blocked all the contacts on my phone except the hospital and the pizza delivery.

I had basically cut myself off from society. Now, after doing something productive for the first time after the incident, I feel like facing the world again.

The TV opens to the news channel. The voice of the female newsreader resounds through the room as I take my first bite.

“… been seven days since the beginning of the mutation. Let us consult Dr. Zachary Mulligan about the opinion of the scientific circle.”

I grimace as I spit out a piece of egg shell that has found its way to my mouth.

I can’t help but notice how she rolls her vowels off her tongue. Little details like this keep popping out at me as my hearing tries to compensate for my missing vision by becoming more sensitive.

“Hello. I am Zachary Mulligan from NSRO. It’s my pleasure to be here tonight.”

The voice seemed to belong to someone old due to the quiver in it. It was deep, making me associate it with a large frame. His tone was authoritative, somehow making me concoct up the image of glasses.

So, Dr. Mulligan, for me was a broad chested, bespectacled old man.

The savoury taste of the tomatoes complemented the crumbly texture of the egg and the coriander offset it perfectly.

Simple dishes, in my experience, were often the best.

He spoke again:

“We believe it to be a consequence of disturbances in the spatial matrix around Earth. Imagine crumpling a piece of paper into a ball. Now imagine that this balled paper is the Earth. Then, what would happen if someone were to pull it out and flatten it again? The Earth would expand… that’s what we are facing now. We, at NSRO, are working on analysing the spatial warping and have discovered a new energy being radiated due to the fluctuations.”

“How do you explain the mutant beasts and humans.”

“Well, we speculate that the new energy is responsible for it and… “

The spoon dropped out of my hand in my shock, clattering against the side of the bowl. It seemed the world had decided to have a makeover in the time I wasn’t ‘looking’. It must have been too shy to do it under my gaze.

Hehe.

.

.

What the fuck?

World expansion? Mutated beasts?

Mutant humans?!

Wasn’t it enough to be blind and disfigured? Now I have to be blind and disfigured during the apocalypse?!

.

.

*drip*

.

Oh, you can’t be serious!

.

*drip*

*drip*

*drip*