Word Weld

I remember thinking that I had slept too late and missed my game of tennis with Winter that morning. She would claim victory by my defaulting, and rib me endlessly about it. I felt my head and took a deep breath, then stopped and felt more carefully. My head was bandaged, and I was having difficulty remembering why. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised at how utterly dark it was in the room. It wasn’t the kind of dark that I was used to…

Reaching over to the nightstand, I started again. There was no nightstand. I felt the bed around me, and it did not feel like my bed. It had rails on either side, and was slightly inclined, so my upper body was higher than my lower body. Slowly, as my consciousness returned, I began to understand what was going on, but at the moment I could not grasp it. My head throbbed somewhat, and I found I was dressed in unfamiliar night clothes. I sat up and felt around on the bed, and then felt warmth on my hand.

At this point I was beginning to experience fear, but I was not yet to panic. I knew that something was awfully wrong, and I knew that very soon it was going to be perfectly clear what I was afraid of. Almost not daring to do so, I moved my hand back toward me, and it was very suddenly cooler. I moved my hand forward again, and it was suddenly warm. I knew the warmth I was feeling… it was the warmth of sunlight. There was sunlight on the bed, shining on me. I could even feel its warmth under the blanket. But if there was sunlight on the bed…

“No!” I said out loud, panic truly setting in now. I began to shout wildly, calling for help, for anyone. “Oh, God!” I cried. “No… don’t let this be real!”

I continued to shout in a frenzy of panic until I was nearly falling off the bed. Then I heard a door open and voices, and I froze, and everything became silent. I pressed up against the inclined back of the bed.

“Who’s there?” I asked, tears streaming down my face.

“Miss Athan,” said a soothing voice, a man’s voice, “calm down, please. I know this is a frightening time for you, but you have to help yourself and stay calm.”

I felt a hand on my arm and it startled me, but when I tried to withdraw it he gripped me more firmly. I could feel another person on the other side of the bed, though this person said nothing at the moment, and did not touch me.

“Where am I?” I ventured to ask, though I knew.

“You’re at the Maryland General Hospital,” he replied. “I’m Doctor Fields, and we’re going to get you through this, you just have to stay calm. Now, you’ve been in a mild coma for the past four days.”

“Four days?” I sobbed. “What happened to me?”

“You were the victim of an automobile theft,” Fields explained, squeezing harder on my arm every time I began to lose myself to hysteria. “Police received a call this past Friday night from an anonymous motorist, who gave them your location. You were found by the roadside, with no vehicle, and an ambulance was sent out right away. The men who attacked you shot you in the head.”

“Shot me?”

“Yes,” he soothed once more. “But you’re going to be fine. If it hadn’t been for that phone call, you wouldn’t be alive. Now, you know that you can’t see, Miss Athan. That is because… the gunshot wound didn’t kill you, which is a miracle; however, there was permanent damage to your occipital lobe. As a result of the damage, you’ve lost your eyesight…”

“Totally?”

There was a moment of silence. “I’m afraid so.”

“Can you do anything?” I begged, weeping once more.

“We already tried, while you were unconscious. However, the risk to your life was too great to continue the operation. At this point, it isn’t possible to operate again.”

I quickly descended into moaning and sobbing, crying uncontrollably and grabbing at anything I could, yet nothing I did returned my vision. I was blind… utterly. The doctor had other business to attend to and left, but the nurse stayed with me for a while. When she had gone, I lay still and prayed, trying desperately not to question God, but finding it nearly impossible. I would rather have died and gone to heaven than to have endured those moments of being so alone in a world that was so very dark.

After a good while I had largely stopped being hysterical, though I still had moments. I continued to pray irregularly, and none of them were ‘good’ prayers. I wasn’t quite ready to believe what was happening was real, but after several hours of thoughtful silence, all alone, my hope that I might be dreaming withered, and as it did, my hysteria turned into an deep depression that weighted on my mind like a block of lead. I was helpless now. How could I run the restaurant? Winter and I would never play tennis again. I couldn’t drive. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t even walk around. I was a burden on my friends, family, and society. I wept more, but softly.

Then I sensed that the door opened, simply by the noise and the way the air shifted in the room. I reached out toward the door and asked, “Who’s there?”

“Hey,” came a familiar voice, and tears came to my unseeing eyes in more force. “It’s me, your personal housefly… remember me?”

“Oh, Winter…” I reached out for her, and was startled. In my mind an image flashed, an image of Winter… or rather part of her, and it was colorless. I saw her shoulder and her neck, and the side of her face, but that was all. I could tell by the shoulder pads she was wearing that awful blue blazer, and those little star-shaped earrings of hers. But I rebuked myself mentally. That wasn’t true; that was just an image I created. I hadn’t really seen her. However, when I recognized the blazer as her blue one, the image showed it as blue. Then she hugged me, and the image disappeared into the blackness.

“I’m blind, Winter,” I quickly forgot the mental picture. “I’m blind…”

“Hey, I know,” she squeezed my arms tightly. “But it’s okay, right? God’s going to take care of you, Jess, just like He always does. The doctor says you’re doing fine. I called your family and told them what happened.”

“I don’t want to go back to live with my parents, Winter,” I declared. “But I don’t know what else I can do. I’m a cripple now. I can’t do anything for myself now.”

“That’s not true! You’re just being negative. Look, you won’t have to move in with your parents. You can stay at your own house. I’ll look after you. They knew you’d be too proud to give up your life if you could help it. Well, you can help it. I’ll take you to work and make sure you have what you need.”

“You’ll move in with me?” I asked, disbelieving, as I cried afresh.

“Sure, it’ll be like college again,” she chuckled. “I can repay you for all those times you helped me out when I just about acted blind as a bat.”

“Winter…” I held her tightly, and I could tell she was crying too. I put my arm around her neck, and was suddenly startled. My hand brushed under her hair and felt one of her earrings. They were star shaped! I withdrew from her, and felt her shoulders and arms. “Are you wearing that ugly blue jacket again?” I asked, puzzling.

She sighed and I could detect that she was shaking her head. “I guess even if you can’t see you still know when I’m wearing this. I just threw something on, and it was sitting on the chair. I came to see you when you were out, but you wouldn’t know anything about that. Your parents say they’ll be flying in this next weekend. They got the earliest flight they could.”

As she spoke, I reached out a hand toward her face. To my surprise, an image seemed to form in my head, like the one before. I saw a very clear picture of Winter’s face against a black background. The image was again totally colorless, but having shape, and her lips even moved as she spoke, the words going right with her movements. As I looked, the image took on color as I remembered what she looked like, but the colors and textures that I remembered were a little off. When I lowered my hand this time, the image lingered as I focused on it.

“…Jess?” she said, and I saw her look at me anxiously. “Did you hear me? I said your mom and dad are coming this weekend… Hey, are you alright, Jess? What’s wrong?”

As I shook my head, the image faded away. “Oh, that’s great… when can I leave?”

“Well, the doctor said that you could leave tomorrow, provided you don’t feel any pain or discomfort. It’s getting late right now. I’ll take you home around noon. I have to take off from work, but I don’t like it much anyway. I don’t even think I’m going to stay with it that much longer.”

“I’m sorry, Winter…” I hesitated. I was already touched that she was going to devote so much of her time to take care of me. “I’m so sorry about all this. You really don’t have to help me. I can just live with my folks, really… I’ll be alright.”

“I don’t think so!” she said indignantly, but was serious as she continued, “Jess, I know you’ve put up with a lot of my stupidity in the past. I’m not half as clever as you are, but you are my best friend. You’re closer to me than my own sister! I’d love to try to do something for you, if you’d just give me the chance…” I knew that she started to cry again, though she laughed next, “Maybe I really will be your personal housefly!”

Though I wondered about it for a moment, I took her hands and squeezed them. “Winter, I know you probably won’t, but if you really want to do me a favor…”

“Just name it,” she said, choking a little.

“Then…” I hesitated one more time, “…I want you to help me at the restaurant. I’m going to need someone I can trust to be my head manager and help me run it. Papa would sell it if I couldn’t run it, and I’d hate to see it leave the family.”

“You want me to…?” I could tell she was startled. “But I… well, Jess… aren’t I well… you know… too much of an airhead to run something serious like that?”

“I don’t want you to run it for me, I just want you to help me run it,” I clarified. “You’ll get a good salary, I promise.”

“Oh, Jess, don’t worry about what to pay me,” she sounded overjoyed. “I’m just so glad you don’t think I’m too much of an idiot to do something really seriously important like that for you.”

“I will think about what to pay you,” I corrected as she hugged me again. “Don’t go by the restaurant until we get ready to go over together. I want to be with you on your first day… and the next few weeks, just to get you used to it. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m almost useless, Winter.”

“No, you’re not,” my friend insisted. “You are going to overcome this somehow. People have overcome being blind before. Now you have to rest. I’ll be back as early as I can tomorrow to get you out of here. Hang in there, Jess, God’s still in control. You can make it through this.”

After she had gone, I lay for a long time just thinking, my hysteria having been deluded by the kindness of my friends and family. My parents were in their fifties and didn’t travel much anymore due to my father’s health problems. I knew it was a very special circumstance, but their willingness to simply pick up and go, just to see and comfort me, was a gentle and touching reminder of their love.

Of course, for all her faults and flightiness, Winter was a true friend and I was reminded of her loyalty to me, and that, too, brought me to tears, though this time they were happy tears. In the midst of what were to be the most difficult hours of my life, my thoughts were turned from the lonely isolation of my mind and to how blessed I was that when it came down to such hard times, my loved ones were there for me. Thank God for Winter.

Then my thoughts reminded me of the image of her I had seen. What a strange and eerie thing. I wondered if my brain wasn’t damaged in some other way, one the doctor couldn’t detect. It even occurred to me that it was my mind wanting so badly to see that it created a realistic image which even matched Winter’s perceived motions.

Hours went by as I pondered these facts, and I wondered if I could have avoided what happened on the road that fateful night. It was then, as I was growing drowsy, that I heard the door open. The hospital functioned all the time, I knew, but visiting hours were over, so I assumed it to be the nurse.

“Could you get me some water?” I asked. “I’m a little dry.”

“Water?” came a male voice that was startlingly familiar. “I have no water, my dear Justice. You will have to be content to have Waters tonight, at least until I leave.”

“You!” fear coursed through my body, especially as I felt a gloved hand press against my mouth. I was totally helpless, and what if he was the one that had shot me? What if he had come to kill me?

“I know you are terribly alarmed,” he said, his voice hushed. “However, you will soon learn to trust me, I think, and in not very long will miss me, I believe. Now, I’m going to take my hand away. I would be grateful if you would keep your voice down.”

The gloved hand released my lips and I felt that he sat beside me on the bed. My heart was racing, but for the moment I was at least still alive.

“What do you want from me?” I asked quietly.

“Much, I’m afraid,” Waters continued. “You see, our meeting was no coincidence. Your troublesome habit of using the name ‘Jess’ in even your legal documents was the reason I did not find you sooner.”

“‘Jessica’ is my middle name,” I stated. “Why shouldn’t I use it?”

“Because your name is Justice!” the man was emphatic. “You are one of very few people ever named ‘Justice.’ It is an odd name for a girl, I have to admit, but it is far more fitting for you than for me.”

“But you said ‘Justice’ was just a title for you,” I remembered.

“Yes, it is, but it is also my name. Now, time is always scarce, so we must hurry along.”

“Are you responsible for what happened to me?”

“No, I am not. However, nothing happens by chance, and what happened to you was meant to happen.”

“You knew it was going to happen,” I stated. “That was the point of the wine and all those riddles you told… You didn’t warn me… you let it happen!”

“If what had happened to you had not happened, my dear, then what will happen would never have had the chance to happen, and that is far better for you, and for those around you.”

“And what is about to happen?” again I felt afraid.

“My dear Justice,” he placed a hand gently on mine, “don’t be frightened. You are chosen, and I know you are chosen because of your name. That is what I have been instructed to look for. The name… of Justice. There are many injustices in this world, my dear, and there are many who believe that there is no punishment in this life… that God is just only in the next life. This is not so, and there are many whose task it is to bring justice.”

“What are you talking about?” I was still frightened, but now I was also confused.

“We, you and I, have drunk of the cup of blessing, and the cup of wrath. Justice, after all, must be blind in order to be truly just.”

“But you’re not blind…”

“Justice is always blind, my dear.”

“But you see, I know you do,” I argued. “You looked me right in the eye…”

“I no longer see with human eyes, my dear. It happened to me, when I was called, but now it is for you to take up my mantle, to succeed me. There are obstacles ahead, but you must learn… you must develop the sense that you have been given in exchange for your sight. In time you will realize it is far more powerful than mere sight, though some things will never truly be the same. It begins here…”

He held my hands up, and as he did, an image of the man appeared in my mind, set against the blackness. It was, like the image of Winter had been at first, colorless, but had shapes clearly defined.

“Yes,” he mused, and the image of him smiled. “You can sense me, can you not? It is not sight that you possess–it is feeling. You can see in your mind anything you could touch, but you do not have to touch it. For now you must hold out your hands, but eventually that will pass away, like a snake shedding its skin, or like a father removing the training wheels from his child’s bicycle. Now do not limit yourself to me… go further…”

As he said this, he moved my hands about the room. I shivered at the unexpected sensation as the image of the man in my mind was now framed by a wall, and then chairs, counters, medical equipment, a window, the bed… On it went, as my hands moved, more of the room was added to the image in my mind. I could see my own outstretched hands in the image, and I moved them and saw them move in the image. But they were not simple images… I felt them, as if the image was made from my having been able to touch every surface. I knew objects were there that would not have been visible to my eyes, like the components in the medical equipment, the way the bed beneath me was framed, and the contents of the cupboards and drawers.

“You ‘see’ now, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I breathed, astonished at the clarity of the images, “everything is colorless, though… why?”

“Because you cannot feel color.”

“But you have color,” I observed.

“That is because you remember what I look like, and the color of my coat. If you remember what something looks like, your mind will color in the image. In time, perhaps, you may grow knowledgeable enough to read things written in ink, but that is some ways off for you. Now I want you to get a glimpse of the potential you have been given. I, too, see by this means, but I have honed it over many years. There is some water on the stand over there. I believe you said you were thirsty.”

I saw (in the image) Waters stretch out his hand, and the cup of water that stood on the counter lifted from where it was and glided through the air into his waiting fingers. He handed it to me, though I hesitated before taking it.

“How did you do that?” I frowned.

“I told you… you sense by feeling. When you are strong enough, you can touch an object enough to manipulate it as if you were touching it with your fingers. You must learn this. The wine is still bitter for you, but soon you will learn its sweetness. You will know things through your senses that no one else may see, and then you must use those abilities you have been given to bring justice.”

“What do you mean, ‘bring justice’? I can’t do anything! I’m totally blind!”

“In time…” he said, rising, “…you will see.”

With that he rose from off the bed, picked up his hat and cane, and quietly exited the room. To my surprise, the image in my mind lingered. I was troubled by what he said, but at the same time fascinated and encouraged by the fact that I could, in essence, see. My world was colorless for the most part, and what was colored didn’t look quite right (most of the time it was probably too perfect), but it was visible in some way, and I could move around at my own desire. My ability to ‘see’ through objects also intrigued me, though more distant objects were not as clearly defined. Through concentration I could make them more defined.

Then I looked down at my hands, watching myself move them, when I noticed something on the bed. It was a business card. All things were blank to me (as I could not ‘feel’ ink yet, apparently), but when I turned the card over, I saw that there were words on it! I felt it with my fingers, and it felt rough… just like the card Waters had given me before. The roughness was something I could feel, but because of that it was also something my mind could see! The first card had not really been blank either, no doubt. This one had a few lines on it:

Blind Justice

587-8423

Bringing justice, but not by sight

Between the words ‘Blind Justice’ and the number was the famous analogy: a woman wearing a blindfold carrying a sword and a balance. However, to my curiosity, the woman was not actually holding either. Instead, her hand was over the balance (not touching it), and her other hand over the downward-pointing sword (also not touching it), yet both hovered above the ground. I sat back, clutching the card in my hand and puzzling over the things Waters had said. Was he part of the government? Or was he part of some obscure secret religious sect? As yet, I was not even completely sure who he was… or what.