Ultra-dark

“this is a god dream, this is a god dream; this is everything” — Kanye West

In the darkness of a bleak Friday night, Sola finds his way to the bathroom with his hands. He has been blind for as long as he can remember and every day is shrouded by the darkness of a bleak Friday night.

There are no stars when Sola finds the handle of the bathroom door and turns it. There are no bright lights when he pushes slightly into the small room. The brilliant white of the water closet does not flash in his eyes. He whistles a song that captures the ambivalence in his heart. A song that is both happy that he is alive and sad that he cannot see anything other than the darkness of a bleak Friday night.

Sola was eight when he first noticed that all he could now see was the darkness of a bleak Friday night. It happened on one such night. The moon was hidden from sight by a thick, velvety blanket of clouds.

Out on the porch where he would sit and count the seconds till his father returned, Sola looked up into the sky and dreamed of butterflies and the Budweiser his father was so fond of drinking. As his mind shifted between scenes, the shrill of his mother’s shriek punctured the calm of the empty stretch of darkness. Her cries were a flurry of confusion and pain; a concoction of emptiness and sorrow. She had just received news of her husband’s death.

At eight, Sola did not yet understand life without his father in it. In a flash, his mind replayed the countless hours he had spent on that porch, counting the seconds to his father’s return, dreaming of butterflies and the Budweiser his father was so fond of drinking. He imagined spending future nights on that porch and never seeing his father return. The thought was so terrifying he allowed hot tears to burn his eyes shut, forever. His last sight was of the darkness of that bleak Friday night on which his father died.

Chimnonso