Title: The "World on Fire:" Extinguished
Author: MitchPell
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with Daredevil, its characters, Marvel comics, Netflix, or the anything else that's related.
Author Notes: According to the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki, Matt was nine in September of 1993 and started his first year of law school with Foggy in September of 2010. Based on the fact that the most nine-year olds are in 4th grade, following a typical K-12 progression, and allowing for four years of undergrad, this would create a five year gap during which Matt and Foggy would not be in school. I could not account for this gap, so I've decided to alter the Daredevil related aspects of this timeline. All other major MCU events will have taken place as stated on the site's timeline. My thanks to Timura for the beta read!
Summary: Matt's musings on his "world on fire."
Email: mitchpell
The "World on Fire:" Extinguished
"A world on fire," that's what he'd told them, first Claire and later Foggy, in a vain attempt to try and describe his world. At best, it was an inadequate metaphor. To describe how he experienced the world as on fire implied that there was some degree of light. Fire, as he recalled from nine years of fading memories, was bright, dancing with its shades of red, orange, yellow, and blue. His world was not bright. It was dark, beyond black. Heavily scarred retinas and damaged optic nerves meant no light perception. In the absence of all light, he was denied the myriad of colors of the flame. Foggy and Claire couldn't fathom that. They couldn't understand how someone who lived in a void could do what he does and know what he knows. In their minds, it was impossible.
"Yeah, but what does that look like?" Claire had asked, which wasn't much better than Foggy's "But you can see, right?" Both statements just went to prove how cemented their beliefs were, that a less than completely abled person could not be the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. "A world on fire," he'd told Claire. "Yes, in a manner of speaking," he'd told Foggy. Neither statement was accurate. "It doesn't 'look' like anything," is what he should have told her. "No, I can't," is what he should have told him. Claire, at least, was trying to understand, was asking out of genuine interest and a desire to know him better. Foggy had just been looking to prove that Matt had lied not only about the extent of his blindness, but about being blind at all, for the past nine years. That, the doubt and mistrust in his friend's voice, had cut far deeper than any blade, Nobu's shoge hook included.
He hadn't been lying when he'd told Foggy that his abilities were hard to explain. They were based in the familiar, yet alien in their complexity. In light of that, he shouldn't have expected them to understand. It was akin to trying to explain colors, or even light in general, to Stick, someone who'd been completely blind since birth, someone who had no concept of sight. Yes, he might be able to grasp the basic idea, but he could never truly understand. How could he? How could he comprehend something for which he had no basis, no prior experience to draw upon? Maybe that was part of Claire and Foggy's problem; maybe it was worse because they did have a foundation. They had an appreciation of sound, taste, smell, and texture. Those senses were very much a part of their world, but they were muted. They were nowhere near as sensitive as his own and were drowned out by what they saw.
Sight was by far the most dominate of the five senses; it overpowered everything. They lived in a sighted world; people's whole lives seemed to revolve around what they could see, which was why it was such a terrifying prospect for them to lose their vision. An experience he was intimately familiar with. Echolocation, which was the closest he could come to describing what he could do, was incomplete in its explanation. And it was not sight. He knew, based on audio and olfactory signatures and temperatures fluctuations, the basic layout and contents of a room. He didn't see it, because he didn't see anything. He just knew. From that, if he chose to, he could draw upon nine years of visual experience and an active imagination to fill in the details, to create a more complete mental picture, but it was nothing more than that, just a picture.
"A world on fire," he'd told them. The only thing that lent the metaphor any truth was the intensity. His world was overwhelming. The constant onslaught of sounds were deafening, the mixture of smells and flavors were oppressing and nauseating, and the textures irritating. It was a constant struggle to control the flames, letting them burn with a controlled ferocity when he was in the mask, smothering them to smoldering embers when he wasn't. But it wasn't sight. Claire and Foggy didn't understand, couldn't understand, try as they might. His world was not bright from the flames; it was a void, complete in its blackness.