Being Blind Isn't That Bad
Being blind isn't that bad. I don't see why people think it is—I've lost one sense, but I overdeveloped another. And it wasn't only my hearing senses, it was my touch senses. If I concentrated hard enough, I could feel the grass growing. The subtle vibrations painted a silver picture in my mind's eye.
When people walked they made a much louder vibration than grass, though. The louder the vibration, the clearer my sound-picture can become. The harder the object making the vibration is, the sharper my sound-picture becomes. That's the problem with sand; it makes next to no vibration. While walking on a beach, the sound-picture is just a smudge of shadow, with the burst of silver here and there if I happen to stumble upon a shell or rock.
My sound-picture, that's what I call it. I see it in black and white. Silver and dark grey, actually. Silver mostly, though. I've grown to like that colour, though I also like green. How do I know what green is, you may ask? Well, I wasn't always blind. When I was very young—three years old—I stopped and stared at the sun. I didn't know it, but my eyes were weaker than normal. I was born that way, with eyes that couldn't see very well. Staring at the sun didn't help. Later that day I woke up from my nap. I knew I was awake, but I couldn't see anything? Is it nighttime? I remember thinking. But even in the darkest, blackest, time of night you could still see the outline of your hand. Your eyes adjust to the darkness. I held out my pudgy little three-year-old hand in front of me, where I knew that I could see it. I couldn't. I waited for a few minutes, but I still couldn't see my hand. I was scared. Truly, overwhelmingly scared. I started crying—well, what did you expect? I was only three years old.
My parents rushed into my room. My mother picked me up, and that calmed me down somewhat. Her arms around me was familiar, the scent on her clothes were familiar. The age-old sensation of a child being in her mother's arms was familiar. I remember sobbing into her shirt, gasping out garbled phrases and words.
"Calm down, calm down, Tophie," Mother said. "There…" she stroked my hair until I settled down enough to talk coherently. "Now, tell Mommy why you're so upset?"
"Mommy," I said, "I can't see! I-I woke up from my…from my nap and…Everything was all dark…I think that I'm blind or something!"
I heard my parents gasp. "Blind! Oh, TOPHIE! Are you all right?"
There was a bit of an uproar after that. People were running around, doing things. I didn't know what they were doing, but there was an awful lot of movement. Somehow I took comfort in the motion; I don't know why. My three-year-old self felt a sudden bolt of intense vibrations flock to my body. The vibrations ran up my arm and my legs and into my ears and my head. And then pictures were forming. My mind was piecing together the sounds with my ears. That sounded like a big crash—what in the world was going on?
The sound-picture displayed a brilliant world of silver. The pictures were clear and sharp. It showed people I knew running about in my own house. I was just sitting there against the wall, minding my own business, not bothering anybody, playing with a little rag doll.
I felt a vibration, different from the others. Different…As in one that I've heard—felt—many times before. It was my Mother's footsteps, her light, quick footsteps. She rushed over to me and picked me up, hugging me close.
"Tophie!" she gasped. "I'm so glad I found you!"
"What's the matter, Mommy?" I asked. I could tell that she was upset.
"Tophie, honey, it's an earthquake!" She said. "We must leave at once!"
An earthquake? I held on to my mother tightly with one hand, and my rag doll in the other. I felt frightened. I knew what an earthquake was, but I never experienced it. I didn't know what to do or what to think…And that frightened me.
The village evacuated quickly. I heard people shouting. My sound-picture was fuzzy and constantly blinking into smudges of shadow. I felt the ground give an enormous shake.
The Earth Kingdom village that we were living in had special places that you can hide out during an earthquake. It was also complete with food supplies, fresh drinking water, warm clothes and so on. I heard Mother and Father talking to each other hurriedly, and someone ushering us inside.
When the ground heaved and split in two, I cried out in sudden pain. The vibrations were so intenseand so great, that my mind's eye erupted in flashes of bright silver and consuming shadow. The sound was too much for my mind to take.
I realized that, as I grew older, my sound-picture became stronger. I withstand large sounds and vibrations. Earthbending taught me how to see those pictures easier, and better. My sound-picture and my Earthbending worked together in harmony.
But my body still plays a part in it. The thought of wearing shoes seemed unthinkable. I hated shoes, so I went barefoot as often as I could. You can't feel the ground with man-made things on your feet. You can't feel the grass growing or the worms inching under the earth with shoes on.
Yes, being blind really isn't that bad. I would like to see people and things, though. Actually see them, I mean. In colour. Real. Not just a sound-picture in my mind's eye.
But that's just wishful thinking, I guess.
Author's Notes:
Yes, yes, I KNOW they said that Toph was born blind, but…Make an exception with this story. Please? Please? Oh, come on…
All right. I tried to describe the sound-picture thing the best way I could. I got that whole thing from the Silverwing Trilogy. Those books (they're by my favourite author Kenneth Oppel) describe how bats "see" with sound extremely well. And in the show when Toph was talking about "seeing" with vibrations, that reminded me of that. So. Okay then. Please review, it would do me a world of good.