Wake

You wake up to discover a completely different, unknown face staring back at you from the mirror. Another great prompt by https://reinventionsreena.wordpress.com/author/reinventionsreena/

Every morning, there is less to see.

An unknow face stares back at me in the mirror, and I know it isn’t me. I can’t see the real person behind the mask. Flashes of light, mixed in with shadows floating across my line of vision.

It’s getting worse, I know it is, but I’m not a victim.

I will learn to live with my blindness, learn to be me again.

I listen to another tutorial, get used to the monotone voice telling me what my eyes should be seeing. It is difficult, and I want to throw my mobile as far as it would go, but I need to persevere.

If I don’t I’ll be defined by my disability.

I have a job to do, and losing my eyesight hasn’t changed who I am? Although, days like today – Graham’s birthday – and even the seed of self doubt can make me feel sick.

‘Get a grip, Sarah,’ I say to myself. ‘You are more than capable, and you will be one step closer to the truth.’

My job at The St Ives News, although not real, has given me something I’ve been surprised with. A sense of achievement, I’ve been lacking of late. Weird. Isn’t it? Being a food critic wouldn’t have been my choice, but it gives me a chance to breathe.

Today, I’m convinced, Georgie Boy, will give me a name – going there in my spare time, acting like I’m falling apart, and he is beginning to trust me. I listen to the machines, loud, and high pitched. I talk about grief, and my struggles to cope in the real world.

Is there anything I can take to numb the pain? I ask. He gives me drugs, which I don’t take. I asked the other day if he could get hold of anything stronger. I know he is a small cog in a very large wheel. Anything stronger and he would have to ask.

I walk into a surround sound of noise, and I resume my normal lunchtime spot. The fruit machine, where I aimlessly put money, and nobody else uses it now.

‘Did you ask?’ I say, sensing Georgie behind me, before he even speaks.

‘Yea, but Ste . . . he wants to see the money first.’

‘I told you, I don’t want to part with that sort of cash, until I know who I’m dealing with. I don’t want you to give me something that doesn’t work. Tell your boss, if I don’t see him, then no deal. I’ll just go somewhere else.’

He pauses for breath, and hands over a mobile. It is small in my hands, but my first link to finding the real monster.