For the few of you who still seem to be following Auggie's journey, here's the next installment. Auggie still has a few hurdles to overcome, but he is now firmly on the road to the confident man that we all know and love.

In my defense, I'd begun this chapter before some of you began to incorporate lyrics into your stories. (I don't mean the iPod shuffles) It worked for you, and I hope it works here, too.

Many thanks once again to resourceress7 (Marisa Bennett) for her words of encouragement, suggestions, and corrections. Love you girlfrien'.

Chapter Five – Words of Wisdom

Auggie sat on the edge of his bed thinking. The radio on the desk played softly in the background. He'd found an 'Oldies' station and the Beatles tune Let it Be filled the air.

'When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer, let it be. …'

For some odd reason, even though he'd heard the song a couple of hundred times before, the words struck a chord with him. 'When I find myself in times of trouble … in my hour of darkness … Whisper words of wisdom …' Trouble. Darkness. He had them both. Wisdom? He sure as hell needed some of that.

Maybe not exactly wisdom, but something that Marissa had said to him on Friday had been troubling him. He remembered the outburst he'd had. He'd stood trembling with tears sliding uncontrollably down his cheeks when she'd left him standing alone in the middle of a room.

She hadn't exactly whispered, but she hadn't exactly shouted either, but she'd told him, 'Life is going to knock you over, simple as that, but do you have the guts to stand up and fight back?' He'd blundered his way around in the days following her statement and he'd thought it over. Did he have the guts to get on with his bleak life? He was still terrified on so many levels: of what the future – immediate and long-term held for him. He didn't feel certain about anything these days, but he was starting to think that maybe he could try swallowing his fear, and working to adapt to this situation he now found himself in.

A rap on the door brought him out of his reverie. "Come in, it's open."

"Did you forget our appointment this morning?" Marissa said from the doorway. "Or are you giving up?"

"What time is it? Didn't forget, just didn't think it was time yet."

"I'll have Jane loan you a watch so you can know the time," she said then chuckled lightly. "Come on. We'll walk and talk."

Auggie rose and ambled towards the door. When he was close to her, Marissa brushed the back of his hand with hers and he followed her arm up to her elbow and grasped her arm just above it.

"Auggie, why are you so resistant to the cane?" Marissa asked softly as they walked down the hall towards her office.

"Because it makes me look blind; and I don't want to be seen as a target," he said quietly, skirting around the high school memory.

"Hate to be the one to break it to you, buster," she said in mock seriousness, "but you are blind."

There was that word again – B L I N D. He wasn't blind. He just couldn't see.

"Seriously, though, you're a bigger target without it. But that's just my opinion. Obviously you have a different one."

Auggie was still having a serious internal debate about whether or not to learn to use the cane. He'd crashed his shins on one too many chairs in the last few days. But, if using the friggin' cane would help him get on with his life, he'd use one.

With a deep sigh of weary resignation - after pondering things all weekend, he had to admit he really was tired of fighting this - he decided to let her words spur him to take action. "All right, fine. You can teach me how to use the damn cane. But I'm only doing this to get you off my back about it."

"Good," Marissa exclaimed.

As they continued to walk Marissa again spoke. "There are two philosophies on blindness. One is held by a lot of people, including many blind individuals and it says that blindness is a disaster, a catastrophe. I'm going to tell you that if you decide that blindness is a disaster, it will be for you. It will dominate and control your life. It will limit your thoughts, your relationships and your achievements.

"The second is the one that we believe here. That blindness is just a physical characteristic, and with the right kinds of training in dealing with the situations you meet in your everyday life, blindness can be reduced to a simple inconvenience."

"An inconvenience?" Auggie responded with incredulity. Yeah, right. Biggest damn inconvenience he'd ever come across.

"It may take you a while to get to that stage, but we hope that by the time you leave here you'll be on the road there." She stopped and opened a door. "Here we are; my lair.

"We still need to do some basic work before I'm going to put a cane in your hand though," Marissa said as she guided Auggie into the room. He sighed and wondered what she was going to do with him today. Lately she was the one person who seemed to always leave him feeling exposed and vulnerable, without an anchor.

"I'm going to leave you here and walk around the room and make a noise. I want you to point to me when you hear the noise."

This again. Every time he'd been here she'd left him standing in the middle of this room and walked away from him. He felt the all too familiar wave of panic rising within him. He hated having no sense of where he was and who or what was around him. This time he forced himself to fight it, and focused his energy on planting his feet firmly on the floor, and listening for her voice - the only things available to help ground him in the featureless void around him. He took a deep, shaky sigh. "What kind of noise?" he heard himself say - louder than he'd thought he could manage.

"Could be anything: I may clap my hands, rattle something, click a clicker," a click-clack sounded to his right.

Hesitantly he pointed to his right. "You're right there," he said. This was the first time in the week that he'd been in this place that he'd managed to get this far without his emotions taking control of him.

"Good," she responded. "You've got the idea. This exercise is to see how well you can tell where a person, or object, is just by listening."

For the next ten minutes Auggie, instead of allowing panic to take over, strained his ears to hear the faintest sound Marissa might make.

Sound. Point. Sound. Point. Sound. He pointed and told her what she'd done.

"Very good, Lt. Anderson. Very good." He smiled. Her praise warmed him, settled him. But her words also annoyed him – First Lieutenant August David Anderson had died the moment he'd awoken in the field hospital without his sight.

"Please, I've asked you to call me, Auggie. I've told you that Lt. Anderson doesn't exist anymore," he said firmly.

Was that a sigh? An exasperated sigh? Seems like every time she was around him she'd sigh a bunch.

"Okay. … Auggie. This next exercise is similar to the first but I just want you to listen and tell me what you hear and approximately where the sound is coming from. If you'd rather sit to do this one, there's a chair two paces behind you and slightly to your right."

Auggie pivoted and, sweeping his right hand before him, took two steps and located the hard plastic chair. Once he had settled himself on the hard seat he concentrated on the sounds around him. "There's a woman, about five foot five in front of me. She smells of coconut and strawberries. To the left and in back of me there's something ticking. A clock rather than a bomb I'm hoping." He chuckled softly. This was almost fun. For the next few minutes he told Marissa everything that he heard; he tossed in a few more things that he smelled for good measure.

"You've done very well with these exercises," Marissa complimented. "Now's the time that we get down to the work we should have been doing since your first day here."

"Remember, I'm doing this under protest and with great reluctance. Still don't want the damn thing."

"Point made."

"I'm going to start you out with a rigid cane. Later you can go to one that either collapses or folds up so that you don't have to worry so much about where to stow it when you're out and about or at work." She paused for a moment. "We'll start with this one." He heard her grab something from near the wall. Then something brushed against his right hand. "We can adjust the length later if we need to."

"How do I use it?" Auggie asked as he took the unwanted cane into his hand.

"Hold your hand out like you're going to shake hands with a new friend. The handle goes across your palm and rests on your extended index finger. Curl your other fingers around it with your thumb pointing down the shaft. Keep your hand vertical."

Her soft hands positioned the cane into his and closed his fingers around it.

"Hello, friend," Auggie said sarcastically. "Now what?"

"Loosen up your grip a little. You don't need a death grip on it. Hold it about mid-line for now. Now swing the cane from side to side with pressure from your wrist and fingers. … The hand swings like a door with the hinge at the wrist. …. Sometime in the future this will all become second-nature and almost an unconscious motion. "

"Like this?" Auggie made a motion with the cane.

"Yes. A little wider. The arc should be a bit wider than your shoulders."

Auggie moved the cane back and forth in front of him several times getting the feel of it.

"That's it. Now we're going out in the hallway so that you can walk up and down for a few minutes to get the hang of using the cane."

Once in the long corridor, Marissa further instructed him in the use of the white cane. "Okay, as you step out on your left foot, tap right; as you step with your right, tap left. When your body is in motion the cane needs to be also. It's going to tell you if your next step is safe."

Auggie concentrated on swinging the cane from side to side as he walked slowly down the hallway.

"Good," Marissa complimented. "You're getting the hang of it. Now turn around and head back this way."

He stopped and did a nice military-style pivot and continued back up the hall to where Marissa waited.

"Very good," she said. "Come here next to me," she commanded softly. "I want to check something." She positioned him with his back against the wall. "Now stride across the hall with your normal gait."

He did as he was instructed and pulled up short when the cane collided with the opposite wall.

"Now, carefully take one more step."

He did and came face-to-face with the wall.

"That's what I thought. Come back to this side of the hall. You need a longer cane. When your cane comes in contact with an object you should be able to stop on your next step and have room to take one more full stride before your body collides with said object and still have a few inches to spare."

The door to Marissa's training room opened and a few moments later the cane was taken from his hand and replaced with another. "When you gain confidence in traveling with the cane and gain speed and regain a more normal stride you may need an even longer one, but this will do for now."

For the next half-hour or so, Auggie and Marissa wandered the corridors of the center as Auggie gained confidence with using the cane.

When the session with Marissa was over, he kept the cane with him as he went to his next lesson. Now that he was no longer in the tight grip of fear and panic, he started to feel more reflective, rather than just reactive.

He thought back on the CIA/Special Forces part of him whose life, and the lives of those in his charge, had depended on knowing and understanding every nuance of his surroundings. Was this really that much different?

He could use that training and experience - and the things Marissa was teaching him - to help him concentrate on getting as much information as possible, get his bearings, and move forward to the task at hand. Ha, how's that for words of wisdom? He cracked a small, wry smile. Maybe Lt. Anderson and CIA Officer Anderson were still there, after all.

If you're still with me, please let me know what you thought of this chapter. Feed the muse.