martin cruickshanks {{ district six

MARTIN

My world is nothing but shadows, darkness creeping up my veins in large clots and I depend upon the hand in mine. Fingers woven together by more than friendship, more than blood. He is everything that I have ever known, every tenden sewn into my forearm is nothing but a carbon copy of his and so our bodies are made of the same stardust. But I am glad that he was born with eyes filled with iron, sharp and dark and ones that I can always feel boring into my skin even when he is out of sight.

Eighty percent. Father worked for three months, breaking his back with heavy lifting and killing himself with the shrill screaming of a hammer against nail to get me to the doctors because oh they knew something was wrong. It was obvious that I was a broken child. I remember begging for Roy to stay with me, to guide me through gray-walled rooms as we trailed behind a big man in a long coat with a clipboard clutches to his chest. I followed the clicking of his platformed shoes, trying to make out more than the vague shape of a man too far ahead. But at least the diagnosis was quick- he knew after only a few moments of speaking to a lost, five year old boy. He was eighty percent blind.

I can only see what is right in front of my face, large dark masses turn to fingers before my eyes and then they fade into an eternal night once more .Tunnel vision, the doctor called it. And I think my mom cried, I could hear soft sniffles from the corner of the room and I tried so hard to understand. What was there to be sad about when this had always been my world?Father asked, voice hushed as we made our way home, feet tapping out a pleasant tune upon the pavement, why I never said anything. Why did I never even mention that my world was nothing but black and white and gray masses?

"I thought that's what everyone saw."

I've had Roy describe colors a thousand times, laughed as he struggled to find the words because it made me feel so much better about not being able to see them. I suppose they are an experience, something that you just have to see for yourself. I told Roy a long time ago that I didn't mind my world being nothing but gray. He probably knew I was lying.

More than anything I want to be like him- strong and bold, armed with a sword and slaying every demon to cross our path. I want to see the sun and the moon and the stars that I have been told about. They are breathtaking- even in the illustrations that I have discovered stowed away within various books. I can only imagine how stunning they are in person.

Magic twists and turns, it crawls upon my fingertips like hungry fire ants sinking their fangs into my flesh. My goggles may be broken, cracked and shattering but imagination knows not the bounds of my disability. Within the confines of my own skull I am a wizard- gifted and whole and in that world I know what the color red is. It is sweetness on my tongue, the crunch of a bitter fruit beneath my teeth. It is so beautiful.

Roy must get annoyed, holding the hand of a boy who moves so much slower than he. I cannot keep up with the bullets that are his words, the hurricanes that are our friends. They are the winter gales and I am a summer drizzle- soft spoken and shy. There are no zephyrs waiting upon the tip of my tongue, no syllable begging to burst from between lips drawn in a tight line. Every word is carefully considered- weighed upon the tip of my tongue and even then forced down a swollen throat. I lack the bravery to speak up.

I've been told a thousand times over that there is nothing wrong with me. A crippled fifteen year old boy is just like the rest, right? He need not tap a metal can to see the road in front of him, need not learn how to read novels with his fingers because the strain of black words on gray paper hurt his eyes. He doesn't cry when he is left alone, lost and unable to see nothing but murky darkness in front of him, even in his own house.

But, remember, there is nothing wrong with me. I am just like the rest of them except I am nothing at all.

People always change when they find out. I can feel their sadness burning away at the exposed bits of my skin, the way their voices turn hushed and soft as they speak. Suddenly I am not Martin anymore, I am not the grand wizard sat next to his faithful knight, I am broken and I am to be protected. No matter how often they preach that my blindness is not a curse, they treat it like one all the same. You would think I was sat on my deathbed with the gentle way their hands find my shoulder, fangs dripping with insincere sympathy.

All I want is to be right. To be their equals. Because it is another bone snapped, spirit broken, when they shrink me down and down and down. They set me on the steps below them and I don't even think they notice.

I refuse to take my cane to school, instead taking the time to memorize the feeling of every brick wall, the tiles beneath my feet. The third stair of every stairway is an inch higher than the rest, broken concrete creating daggers upon the corners of the old building. People don't notice, more often than not. They don't understand just how scary an inch difference can be to a boy like me.

But one day I'll be strong. I'll be like Roy- the knight bound to me by blood. Because I don't need the rest of them- the ones with sad eyes that I so seldom can make out. I don't need to be placed upon eggshells and carefully toted across.

I'm quiet. I'm scared. I'm broken.

But I'm stronger than anyone believes.