Iggy: What No One Knows
Another morning. Another day of darkness for Iggy. He opened his sightless eyes to the bright orange glow that appeared when he looked at something bright and knew he slept in.
Step out to the left. Seven steps then open the door, and take twelve steps down the hall to the staircase.
Iggy followed his mind map and made it down the stairs. From here the way was a little fuzzy since the kitchen really wasn't the most organized place in the house. He listened to the usual clutter and chaos of morning happening in the kitchen. Iggy heard a chair scoot across the floor, meaning someone was either sitting at the table or leaving it. Probably not leaving since they usually relied on him to cook anyway. Then Iggy focused on the sound of the cabinet opening while across the table Angel yawned sleepily.
"Morning, Ig," Max greeted me.
Iggy flinched back with surprise, completely unaware of Max's presence. "Finally out of my cave," he grumbled and went to the table, on the way tripping on Magnolia, Ella's dog that just didn't have the sense to move out of the blind kid's way.
"Can you make us some grub already before we keel over? We have been waiting forever," Nudge asked in her pleasant Nudge way.
Sitting at the table diagonal from me near the end, Iggy noted before answering. "You want them burnt coals or golden brown?"
"Golden brown, please," Total said from beneath the table.
Iggy could hear footsteps ahead and sidestepped around Max who was getting some cereal to calm the ravenous wolves at the table until he could make them some golden brown pancakes on the skillet. He reached his hand out and felt around to the dials on the stove, feeling them carefully before turning the burner on to the right temperature.
What Iggy really enjoyed about cooking was how important it made him feel, knowing he was the only one in the flock who could make decent eggs and bacon without setting off the fire alarm. Being blind, he was considered weak by anyone who didn't know him, and it was infuriating. Seeing, like you really need that anyway.
Crud. Forgot the pancake mix. Iggy abandoned the skillet and went to the pantry, opening it up to a wall of vast darkness just like everything else. Where was that again? If he remembered correctly Max liked putting that back on the top shelf. He felt around, found a cardboard box, another one, another one…but which one is the pancake mix?
Ask for help. Forget it. Asking to hold someone else's hand to find pancake mix in the pantry? Yeah right. Iggy shook the contents until he found one that sounded light and powdery. He opened the box a bit and sniffed inside, and confirming that it was pancake mix, waled back over to the skillet to start the pancakes.
Even Ella was home today, and she talked to Max earnestly at the table, making Iggy turn around to calculate her position in the room. He didn't even know she was here with all the chatter going on, he couldn't hear a rocket launch from outside the kitchen window.
Another chair moved, someone else got up to get Magnolia off the table. Iggy couldn't keep track of it all because no one would hold still! He wanted to punch a loaf of bread in his frustration. He discovered recently that soft loaves of bread make good punching bags without bruising his hands, although it could lead to squished sandwiches.
About seven or eight minutes passed and Iggy pushed the pancake onto a plate, and started on the next one.
Ella came up behind him and dressed up the pancakes with syrup. By the sound of the syrup oozing out of the bottle Iggy assumed a lot. "You are a great cook, Iggy. I will make the bacon. You go sit down."
Iggy liked Ella. She was nice and didn't seem to be treating him any lesser than the other flock members. He was clenching and unclenching his fists, and was about to go to the table when he froze. "You think I can't handle cooking food for you savages? I can't handle putting bacon in the freaking microwave?" He didn't even realize that his voice rose and the kitchen fell silent, and Iggy could picture the rest of the flock looking at him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that," Ella said apologetically, automatically making Iggy feel hot and ashamed with guilt. "I just thought you might want to eat your pancake before it gets cold."
"Okay," he muttered and stood there for a split second, remembering which chairs were occupied before settling for the one on the end.
"Yes! I'm starving!" Max exclaimed and helped Ella pass everyone their pancake.
Clank! Clank! Clank! Plates hit table and Iggy heard the more tinkly clanking of forks and such. Well, the flock didn't really use forks each morning, but somehow they still wound up on the table each morning. Normally morning the time to shove pancake into your mouth with your hands, and dip it in syrup like chips and dip since Dr. Martinez(who by the way the flock was temporarily staying with) was at work and rules didn't apply.
Iggy thought he did a good job with the pancake. It was a dried out crisp wad, and he could detect a gross black color on the pancake, just the way he liked it. With instant bacon, it definitely helped relieve his stress.
That was before Total made some doggy gagging noises. "Yuck! You call that golden brown? Seriously, can't you see when the pancakes are done?"
So much more bliss. "No, as a matter of fact I cannot see when the pancake is done. In fact, I can't even see what anything is. I can't see what the heck you look like, or when the stupid dog is in my way! I am blind! I can't see ANYTHING!"
Silence. Nothing but silence.
"Iggy, we understand-"
He was on a roll now and continued. "No, you don't understand. None of you do. None of you know what it is like to wake up to darkness all the time, and wake up to falling flat over dogs, and making pancakes too done. I'm outta here."
Iggy jolted the whole table getting up, and he heard something like the breaking of glass and orange juice dripping off the table.
Where did it hit? I should probably help pick that up! Yeah, that's right! You don't know where it is because you can't do anything right! It was just too much.
Iggy climbed up the stairs and plopped on the floor to his room like a stone. That's right, the floor. At least he could still feel a few vibrations of what was happening downstairs, and hear some voices. Yes, silence at last.
He stretched out his wings across the floor. They were a creamy gray, at least that is what he felt when he touched them. It is not like he could see them as being gray.
Right. Back to thinking about life. Iggy thought about what happened that morning, looking out into the darkness of his vision for answers to why he felt so…mad? About what? Sad maybe? Confused? What exactly was the problem here? He laid there, thinking about this, and it took him awhile to reach the conclusion he had been trying to hide from the flock as well as himself.
I am blind. Yes, that was it. The thought made him feel all those feelings combined into one big blah. No matter what he did, hearing, sensing, feeling, it didn't replace his eyesight; the key to seeing the world as it really was. Everyone else could see, and he would be able too if the freaking whitecoats wouldn't have toyed with his eyesight. Who even cared if a genetic experiment lost its eyesight when we could just record its actions stumbling blindly around anyway?
The thought was disturbing. Iggy turned over. He was vulnerable, the deadweight, the one who had to cling onto someone else, and who had to blindly lash out at erasers and hope he hit something. He didn't feel secure. That was the problem he suspected. He wanted to see the world, and be useful. What use was cooking as a special skill anyway when instant bacon was invented? Nothing.
I should just get out of here and stop burdening the rest of the flock with my presence. I am useless.
Feeling his eyes get moist, he curled himself in his wings to shield him from the world he could never escape from when the tip of Iggy's wing touched something on the floor. He reached out and grabbed it. It was a cube, and it was hard, and the pieces turned. Iggy moved the Rubix cube in his hand and turned the pieces, feeling them with his fingertips to see which sides to move. Set forth with this new challenge, he set aside the fact that he was a blind mutant avian freak and played with the toy. It took him a long time to feel where all the colors were, but that made it even more entertaining to remember where they all were.
After many long minutes Iggy felt all the sides of the cube, feeling five perfect sides. The sixth one was all mixed up and he sighed, tossing it across the floor carelessly. Out of six one side didn't belong. In the flock one bird-kid didn't belong either.
Iggy didn't feel any better about himself after laying there in Zen mode, but it was another day, and it was time to get up and face it. He decided it would be best to go downstairs and help clean up a little, but by the time he got there everything was silent. He heard nothing, and wandered around downstairs for any traces of life.
Oh no. Not M-Geeks when I wasn't even here! Iggy was about to break out in panic attack mode when he heard the unmistakable sound of Angel laughing coming from outside. The rest of the flock was out there too, probably playing under the beautiful green-leaved summer trees, maybe even admiring their beauty. Iggy never officially saw a tree, except something brown and green that felt hard and soft at the same time. What did a tree look like anyway?
There wasn't much out there to offer Iggy, so he grabbed hold of the pancake mix and placed it back on the top shelf before starting on the rest of the kitchen.