02.05.08
Auggie awoke with a start. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but he was getting used to the unexpected fatigue that often swept over him these days. The worst part was the disorientation that followed. With zero light perception, Auggie couldn't guess from the sun or moon what time it might be when he woke up like this.
Though he had been irritable and sullen with him, Auggie was suddenly grateful that the man (Sean? Seth?) who'd shown him to his room the day before had demonstrated the talking alarm clock on his nightstand. Auggie reached over to feel for it, and came into contact with the hated cane. The same rage he'd felt earlier swelled in his chest again, and he swiped the aluminum implement to the floor once more.
Finding the alarm clock, he pressed the talk button, and the aggressively cheerful female voice loudly announced that it was 2:32AM. Whoa, Auggie thought. He'd fallen asleep sometime yesterday afternoon and now it was the middle of the night. He laid back down, but soon realized he'd slept through dinner and his gurgling stomach was not going to allow him to sleep until he put something in it.
He remembered with relief that his mother had insisted on sending him with a care package when he'd left DC. Of course, at the time, he was embarrassed by what he had considered her babying him. But old habits died hard for Jan Anderson-Cole, and August had always been her baby. So he'd allowed her to stuff a backpack with toiletries, granola bars, and Gatorade, and she'd insisted Auggie take it with him to Michigan.
Now Auggie wracked his mind trying to remember where in the room he'd put it. One of the many, many exhausting things that Auggie had already learned about blindness was the constant vigilance required not to lose shit. When you can see, you just take your coat off after coming inside and toss it wherever. Or you mindlessly put your phone down on a counter. When the time comes to use the object in question again, a quick visual sweep of the room will reveal its presence. Searching for something while totally blind, particularly in a room you've never actually seen, was maddening.
Auggie sat up in the twin bed he'd been assigned, and contemplated the situation. Finally, he hefted himself out of bed and began the hunt for his bag. Two steps into his nocturnal exploration, he stepped squarely (and painfully) onto the cane. "Shit!" he cried out and he reached down to massage his insole. He was just about to kick the damn thing across the room, when he realized that he'd just step on it again at some point. Blind Rules 101: Keep the floor clear.
So he reached down and grabbed the cane. Here, with no snotty attendant to observe, he felt a little more curious about what he was holding in his hand. He assumed it was red and white; he'd seen blind people on the street before, and their canes had invariably been red and white. His calloused fingers trailed down the cane until they found what felt like a firm marshmallow at one end. Auggie was shocked to find himself grinning, as the tool once again brought back camp memories, this time of roasting s'mores around a bonfire.
The unexpected positive memory softened his mood, and he found himself unwrapping some sort of elastic cord that seemed to bind the cane together. He extended each segment one at a time, and soon found himself holding a fully assembled cane.
Immediately, revulsion rose in his throat. This was not what he wanted. He did not want to be a person who needed a cane, a person who needed help to navigate a bedroom, a blind person. He wanted his old life back. He wanted to return to his unit and continue doing the vital work they'd been doing when the bomb went off. He wanted to murder Nasir with his own hands. He'd taken out the Jack of Diamonds, for crying out loud, which should have been a career high. Instead, he'd had about 30 seconds to exult before the bomb went off, taking his friends and his eyes and leaving his life in shambles. He'd been both incredibly lucky and incredibly unlucky in the very same awful moment.
This time, he didn't try to stop his tears.