A/N: For some reason, I'm feeling a little depressed. It's probably the weather (or perhaps the Christophe Beck music I'm playing on repeat) and I needed to write. Apologies for being so sad in the morning. Warning: character death. But then, that was probably a given.
None So Blind
She stomps out of the apartment and slams the door violently. He feels the vibrations through his cane but does nothing to stop her. His head drops when he realizes he probably couldn't have seen far enough to have done anything, anyway.
"There are none so blind as those who will not see." That's what she whispered to him before she ran out. Now he understands how true some semantics are.
He taps his way back to the couch and reaches four inches from the bottom left corner of the coffee table for the remote; it's where he always puts it. She knew well enough that it was not to be moved. The television screen is just a blur of color but he enjoys the familiarity of the sounds. They remind him that he was not always so pathetic. He used to be able to see more than three feet in front of him. And it didn't always hurt so bad. Of course, he reasons, this may have been more due to her than anything he'd done to himself.
No more drugs, they'd said. You're killing yourself, they said. None of them really understood that that was kind of the point. He wasn't strong enough to pull a trigger or tie a noose, but he could sure as hell pop pills. Ironically, not enough to end the blackness, but just enough to reassure that silence would come eventually. It was better to suffer. It made him happier.
Naturally, she didn't comprehend his reasoning. She said he was running away again. She said he didn't need to suffer to be happy. She said she'd help. She couldn't help. Eventually, she had to get out too, just like everyone else. He was a poison. A slowly dying poison.
She gave him an ultimatum: me or the drugs. He chose the drugs. So she left.
They always do.
When he woke up that morning and found he couldn't see the clock, she was the person he called, sobbing. She'd dropped her tests and run. They said the Vicodin was causing permanent damage to his vital organs. They told him to quit or he'd be dead in two years. Now he is virtually blind and in constant pain. It's always good to suffer.
She begged him to stop. She asked him if he ever wanted to be able to see her face again. She didn't understand the poetry of his blindness. When she told him to stop being so distant, he limped to his room and locked the door. He never heard her leave.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Funny how he finally sees when his eyesight is waning. Poetic, even.
She has a key. She knows he probably dead. Still, she needs to see the body. His lips are cold, his eyes are open and unseeing. And though she says she won't, her tears fall silently on his stubbled cheeks.
He was blinded by his life. She is blinded by his death.