Sightless - love beyond sight

Sometimes it helps to run. As far as I can get and as fast as possible, without ever looking back. Through forests, wet and cold, over the moss-covered ground, half frozen from the winter’s embrace, its icy fingers slowly sliding from the branches to the ground, making way for spring dressed in its bright green dress. Branches swept to the forest floor by the last autumn wind, aren’t easy to jump, almost causing the legs, trembling with pain, to give up. 

Yet, I don’t even know what I’m running away from. Am I fleeing at all? Am I running away or towards someone? Is it loneliness that pushes me forward, or perhaps fear?

What am I even here for?

A memory chases after me in my shadow, raising its arms, almost catching hold of my jacket, but I’m always one step ahead. Still, it follows me - the past that has long been forgotten - to remind me of what could have been if I had taken a different path. If I had turned left instead of right.

It feels like a curse, disguised as a beautiful dream, presented on a silver platter made of bones and shattered hope that every human once had.

If I turn around now, I know for certain, that I’ll see my best friend Tahmina in that memory, that’s always lurking a few steps behind me.

Although I haven’t seen her in years, I still remember exactly what she looked like. Her long dark brown hair, its curls always breaking free from every braid, rebellious like orchid roots fighting their way out of the imprisonment of a flowerpot. Tahmina’s brown eyes always gaze out into the world full of curiosity. To her, there was nothing and no one that wasn’t interesting or couldn’t tell a good story. It was her greatest gift and her greatest curse because there were plenty of captivating life stories in Denmark’s capital, especially for a woman from Iran who stood out like a red rose in a field of forget-me-nots.

I continued running, silent laughter on my lips. I dared not let a sound escape my mouth. Any noise, no matter how insignificant and faint – I somehow knew this for sure – would destroy the memories and bring me back to the present — a present I desperately tried to flee from. Yes, I remember! That’s what I’m running away from!

Once again, the lurking shadow behind me raised its arm, grabbing hold of the collar of my jacket.

I stopped as the memories crashed over me like a tsunami hitting the shore.

Tahmina spoke about the meaning of life to strangers in the shopping mall, whom she had only met because she had once again been waiting for me. Sometimes, I took the time to observe my best friend from a distant corner of the mall. I watched her full lips curl into a big smile or observed her thoughtfully listening to the person in front of her while pressing her mouth together in anticipation. I knew that my friend would start tugging at the corners of her headscarf whenever the story became captivating or twirling the ends of her escaped curls when someone included too many meaningless details.

“Do you think there will come a time when you can go to a shopping mall without being approached by strangers?” I heard my own voice saying, overlaid with annoyance. “It would be great if I didn’t have to share you with the stories of complete strangers.”

With a playful pout on her lips, Tahmina adjusted her headscarf. “Imagine if we could clone people. I could always be with you and pray with my family at the same time.” She let out a dramatic sigh. “That would save me so much trouble. I could wear whatever I want and cut my hair.”

“I could be with you, especially while your other self moves with your stupid family to the other side of the world,” I snapped back.

Of course, I didn’t want to hurt her, but her move to South America hung like a giant thundercloud over our friendship, which we had patched together since kindergarten. It had been so difficult to establish this friendship in the first place, as we came from two completely different worlds.

Tahmina was one of those people who decorated their house with Christmas lights in the summer, completely ignoring the judgmental glances from the neighbours. On the other hand, I didn’t even dare to go to the mailbox in slippers and sweatpants, fearing someone would judge me for it.

Quickly, I shook off the memory, trying to shoo it away like an annoying mayfly buzzing around my ears. Immediately, I felt the pain, an echo triggered by a single memory scene—a flashback in the film of my life.

With closed eyes, I continued running through the summery forest, smelling the blueberries that stained my feet blue and feeling the fleeting touch of fern leaves gently brushing against my upper arm. And then the phone rang, brutally pulling me out of my daydreams.

I quickly opened my eyes, but the world remained dark, as the voice of a customer resonated through my headset, loudly complaining about the recently increased electricity prices.

This excursion into the past, even if it had only been in my head, had rekindled my longing for Tahmina. And while the customer rambled on for ten minutes, explaining how the price hike made no sense and how she had calculated everything twelve times, I noticed my thoughts stepping away from the open-plan office once again.

The last time I saw her, her long brown hair was tied up in a messy bun that seemed to collapse at every point. She held a pair of scissors in her hand, threatening to cut off the hair she despised so much.

It was the first time I saw her without her traditional headscarf. At the same time, it was the last time I could see her at all. We sat in my thirteen-year-old self’s room, drinking cocoa with too much chocolate powder and listening to the music from our favourite horror movie.

I had already taken down the Ariana Grande posters after receiving my diagnosis. Why hang posters on the walls when I wouldn’t be able to see them anyway?

“Memorize my face well,” she said, laughing, as her hands framed her face, which kept changing abruptly.

Smiling, I shook my head. “As if I could ever forget you. I’ll be blind, remember? Memory loss isn’t part of my condition, idiot.”

I wanted to pretend that all of this was temporary—that my world would be dark for just a few years before regaining its usual colourful splendour with fireworks and champagne. A beautiful dream, but just that: a dream. It was wishful thinking that my brain had been trying to convince me of since my diagnosis, to keep me functioning.

But there was only one thing that truly brought me back to reality: my best friend and her silly, completely inappropriate jokes that could make me both angry and happy. She always knew what I needed at any given moment.

“And I’m just moving, not dead, yet you act as if you’ll never be able to talk to me again,” Tahmina replied, slightly upset. “But I’ll still be on the same planet.”

She positioned the scissors and, although I would never have believed it, cut the bun in half. Brown, long hair fell to the floor. Her father will kill her!

“But I’ll be on a different continent with completely different time zones! You’ll be hundreds of hours ahead of me in Santiago de Chile.” My voice escalated from absolute calm to panicked screaming. By now, I no longer knew what scared me more: the impending darkness, the absence of my best friend, or the fact that she was cutting her hair very short right in front of my eyes. Perhaps it was a combination of everything.

“Four hours, Elli.” I could hear her roll her eyes as our old kitchen scissors continued cutting through her hair. “It’s only four hours. If we talk at 8 PM Danish time, it will be afternoon for me.”

“I’ll never see you again, and your only concern is that we still have enough time to talk on the phone?” I twisted her words, although it wasn’t my intention. This was our last evening together, which was on the verge of turning into a disaster because I felt attacked by every one of her comments. All I wanted was for this evening to stay in our memories forever.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured softly. Words that meant nothing and yet everything I could say. Fear had already taken hold of my heart. Nothing I did or said could change the course of the future. Even if I screamed and raged, my eyesight would soon extinguish forever. No matter how much I begged, Tahmina would still disappear with her family next week.

“Hey,” her strong arms wrapped around my shoulders as she pulled me close and placed something plushy in my right hand. “This is Mister Waddles, the Super Elephant.”

Confused, I looked at the old stuffed animal in my hands. Of course, I knew Waddles well, as he had been Tahmina’s most loyal childhood companion. He was a grey stuffed elephant with his neck sewn back to his body multiple times in a messy way. She loved this cuddly toy, even though everyone knew she had long outgrown her companion.

“I know who he is,” I snapped back before throwing the elephant back in Tahmina’s direction. “What am I supposed to do with Waddles? Shouldn’t he be in your suitcase by now?”

Tahmina smiled at me, then stood up straight, pushing her shoulders back, revealing her flat chest. She bound it daily with fabric pieces, cut from old clothes, that she hid from her parents. Tahm was always trying to hide her breasts from view, because she hated everything that made her a woman. Even her own reflection in the mirror disgusted her. I would never forget how she got her first period during an overnight visit at my house and had a panic attack screaming that not only shocked her but also me.

“No, because I will leave him with you. You could almost say that I’m intentionally leaving him here so that I have to come back someday and pick up my childhood buddy.” With these words, she placed the elephant in my hand again. “You’ll unexpectedly find Waddles when I’m on the plane, and promise me to feed him every day so that he won’t die.”

“That’s so silly.” Sometimes I felt like I was 20 years older than my best friend, who always seemed to be carefree, almost childish. Yet, I caught myself pressing the stuffed toy against my body. It was a part of Tahmina that wouldn’t disappear.

“No, it’s a promise,” Tahmina explained. “If I forget something, I have to come back for it eventually, right?”

Once again, the annoying ringing of the phone ripped me out of my memory.

“Radius Customer Service, you’re speaking with Ellinor. How can I assist you today?” It was the standard greeting of the company I worked for, and at the same time, my eternal mantra. Sometimes I even dreamed about it, answering the call when the killer in my apartment tried to scare me with the imminent threat of death.

“There’s a strange black envelope in your mail,” I heard my younger brother’s voice say confusedly on the other end of the line. “Is mother dead?”

Annoyed, I closed my eyes. How many times had I told him not to call me on my work line unless it was important?

“Thank you for your call,” I said through gritted teeth into the headset. “May I remind you that this call may be recorded for quality assurance and training purposes? If you consent, please press 2 on your phone now. If you do not consent, please press 3.”

While waiting for Gabriel’s response, I entered our mother’s name into the customer interface, contemplating how I could find out what was going on without revealing to my wandering boss that I was having a private conversation.

One downside of being blind was undoubtedly that I couldn’t see approaching danger, in this case, my team leader who constantly lurked around us call centre employees.

I heard the sound of a button being pressed, but still had to wait for the cold computer voice to read aloud what my brother had pressed.

“Of course, you are not allowed to record the call, you thoughtless person,” I heard him scold with a laugh. “But seriously, what’s up with the black envelope?”

After he finished his sentence, Griselda, as I lovingly called my text-to-speech program, informed me that my conversation partner did not consent to a recording. So, there was only one problem left: my team leader.

“I’m sorry to hear that you received unpleasant mail from us,” I reopened my mother’s customer profile, who, luckily for us, was a customer of the electricity provider. “Could you possibly read to me what was in the letter? According to our records, you should not have received any payment reminders.”

Gabriel groaned in annoyance before I heard the sound of paper being forcefully torn in two. Internally, I smiled at him. Curiosity was an inheritable trait in my family. I had it, and so did Gabriel. We couldn’t help it; secrets were meant to be uncovered.

“It’s an invitation,” Gabriel’s voice wavered between excitement and confusion. “But why?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t understand what you mean,” it became increasingly difficult for me to come up with dumb sentences that wouldn’t give away our cover. “Are you sure we’re the sender of the letter?”

There was a brief silence. Our phone perfectly managed to suppress any background noise from Gabriel’s end. All I could hear were the everyday sounds of the open-plan office. Staplers fastening sheets together, phones ringing, and loud typing on keyboards.

“Henrik Østergaard and Majken Winther,” Gabriel read in broken Danish. “The wedding is on May 5th, and you’re supposed to RSVP by this Friday, but seriously,” I heard him take a deep breath. “Wedding invitations in black? Sure, people like to say that a wedding is like a funeral, but do you really have to make it that obvious to your guests?”

A laugh escaped my lips before I remembered that I was still at work and officially not on the phone with my brother.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh,” I tried to salvage the situation, although I suspected that nobody was listening anyway. “We will send someone to check the meter at your place.”

Gabriel laughed as well. “Do those idiots ever wonder why Mom keeps calling them over and over again? At some point, they have to catch on.”

Of course not. The electricity provider hardly ever looked into the files unless someone complained about the customer service.

“I’m really sorry that you’ve had so many issues with us. I would like to offer you a credit on your next bill.” This role was becoming quite exhausting. I would have preferred to just get up and go home to talk to Gabriel about the wedding.

“Oh!” My brother’s surprised scream immediately alarmed me.

“What happened?” My customer service representative mask dropped instantly, and I resumed the role of the concerned older sister.

Nobody answered, so I probed further. “Gabriel?” I whispered into the receiver. “Is everything okay?”

“The wedding is in Aarhus.”

I almost let my head crash onto my table. “What!?”

“Don’t these people know that you can’t see anything, or do they want every guest to face a deadly challenge before they can dive into the buffet?” Gabriel’s voice had changed. All the cheerfulness that had warmed our conversation earlier, like the sun on a summer day, seemed to have vanished and I understood why.

Aarhus. Forty-five minutes away by plane and just under three hours by car from Copenhagen. For someone like me, it felt like another world. Of course, I could take a train, but even for that, I would need help and money to pay for tickets or, if someone drove me, for gasoline. Money that I didn’t have.

Everything I earned went into Gabriel’s savings account—of course, without him knowing. He thought our father was responsible for the money. It had been a promise from our father that he had never fulfilled, and instead, I fulfilled it without ever being asked to. Gabriel shouldn’t waste his life away in an open-plan office but be able to pursue his goals without having to think about money.

“Are you still there?”

I lifted my head, pulling myself out of the bitter memory of our dad. How long had I not been listening, and what had he said? Multitasking was never one of my strengths.

“Yes,” I blurted out as I ran my hand over my forehead. “But I wasn’t listening, I’m sorry.”

He sighed. “Of course, I have to tear the power cables out of the wall and bite through them with my teeth for you to give me your time.” Silence enveloped us before Gabriel spoke again. “Should I write to them and decline, or not?”

“What?! Do you want to send them a response already?”

My mind started working. Could I afford this trip? It wasn’t just the gas or the plane ticket, but also a dress, makeup, and a hairstyle – I couldn’t look like I just rolled out of bed. Majken and Henrik visited me regularly, at least once a year, but often more frequently. I would even consider Majken a close friend who had held my hand during many treatments. I felt obligated to attend their wedding somehow.

“Wait!” I forgot about my disguise or the office that continued to exist around me. “Send them a yes. I’ll figure something out!”

A panic reaction that I hoped I wouldn’t regret.