Oh my, I've been had the better of. Anxiety came creeping out of nowhere to set my fingers tapping and my mind to fuzz. Will I ever meet the day where little things cease to worry me? It was not the conversation, hardly that. I have no obvious memories of brainwashing, nothing beyond what you subconsciously get from simply living in human society. My mother had me of the belief that rules were set to stone until I entered school, that is all. Rules indeed. What then, if those rules are unjust, and who decides? Ah well, too much for this cookie on this night. I'm going to bed!

Remus and August made spaghetti last night. I'm eating it cold for breakfast. It's no small challenge to get Remus to eat, and I fear I was horrible about it years ago. Getting me to eat was a task not for the faint of heart. I rarely felt hunger or the desire to eat while I was lived. Remus shared that with me, and I won't have any of the assumptions people usually generate on learning that we're both werewolves. I've seen many of my kind dig in with every intent of returning for seconds.

Mf. I'm rambling here. My mind doesn't wake up until noon! Have mercy!

August and I spoke of day to day events. I told him I was worried about his skiing hobby. He reminded me that, while he may very well be a daredevil, that he's not unintelligent about it. Lexi's not either; I just worry about standing on two slats of wood and flying down a mountain at forty miles per hour. August puts the snow machines behind him when he skis.

I wasn't gutsy enough to try such sports when I was alive. I'm a musician, a healer, and meddle in language studies. That's all I do am.

...through all that, I don't know why anyone would take my advice seriously.

Dancing has taken over my life. I feel like I'm taking soft steps through the morning without ever brushing to a barre. The scent of coffee wafts out from the kitchen and caffeine gives me my frappé work for the day. Sunlight runs in through the windows, shafts of brightness in the opaque. I can't see, and I never needed sight to feel.

August has no routine he follows. I do my best to avoid him in the morning, lest I inadvertently upset him with my presence. He is not the most agreeable person prior to having coffee. That too changes. I never can truly predict him, same as I fail to foresee what the day will bring. Obstacles find me, or others, and I step silently for fear of upsetting them with unnecessary sound. Too often I think my presence is not a welcome thing here.

My presence is a complication. I walk on ropes not for fear of falling, no. What I fear is more than that. I fear that I'll tip a balance and ruin something beautiful. I feel that if I do not step carefully, do not watch what I say with utmost care, I'll break something that has no right to be broken.

Not by me.

Not now.

Heights have always frightened me. I don't like to be far away from the ground, and it doesn't matter what takes me up. Elevators scare me, ladders terrify me, fire escapes are the pinnacle of horror. I'd likely take my chances inside the burning building rather than climb out on a rickety metal attachment. My fear of these things didn't come with my blindness, I have always had them. When I was small I climbed trees, just never too high. I liked to read in trees, often squeezing my eyes shut for the descent and feeling around with my toes until I found the next branch down. Looking down from high places made my muscles weak, my vision blurry. I'd slip, and then cling on very tightly to whatever was keeping me in position and stay that way until someone came to look for me. There was one time when I spent an entire night clinging to a tree trunk, my right knee on a branch and the ground thirteen or fourteen feet below me.

An hour into the gray dawn and I gave up. I let go and didn't try to buffet my fall. Nothing could possibly be worse than clinging to the tree (life) another minute, another second.

The leaves rose up and caught me.

I woke up on my side without a single bruise.

"Hello, father." I said that. I knew then that my father's curse that my mother spoke of had fallen on me too. And I also concluded that a curse would not save my life, unless it were a truly devious curse with diabolically nefarious intent. Cold and tired with leaves stuck in my hair, I made my way home and told my mother I had fallen asleep in a stack of leaves and didn't plan on going to school until the following day. She let me have the gift of a day of rest not on a Sunday.

The leaves never rose to catch me in my dreams. I clung to the ladder, tipping slowly (so slowly) backwards, picking up speed and rushing down. Faster and faster, jolting awake when my back hit the ground. The feeling, over and over even after I woke up. Dora and Remus were there, Remus as he used to be. He'd wake me before I hit the ground. He knew when I clung I dreamed of being on the edge of a fall. Remus never shook me, he spoke to me until I fought my way out of the dreams. He did it again last night, and I never wanted him to leave. I wanted the life I knew back. That life is gone from me, swept away by time. I have Morgan now, my ever-patient grey cat. She curls next to me and no one else. If I must, I will talk to her. She purrs contentedly through all of my stories, my musings that I'd be better served by writing down. I could model myself after her, hopefully learning to land on my feet with more ease than I do now. My fears haunt me, leaving me wanting to return to what I knew when I no longer can. The past is sealed, I have to continue forward from here.

I may add rhymer_713 out of curiosity. I'm interested to know what it's like to live with blindness in this world. I was not blind in the time before I was here, not until the very end. Lexi is not blind herself, which means I'm able to see when I'm close to the front. That's how I read, unless Remus is reading to us. I do prefer when Remus reads.

The only time I am truly blind is when I am away from the front. It is not always a deep impenetrable gray, I've had it lighten to seeing in grey-scale. The grey-scale never lasts for very long; I'm often plunged back to impenetrable shadow. My other senses are strong to balance my lack of vision. I can hear and smell acutely, and if I am careful I rarely bump people or other objects.

And I have my memories. I dream often of places I lived in, the sun and surrounding landscape. My inability to see does not sadden me all that much. It makes me nervous when I'm in unfamiliar places and require a walking stick and someone to direct me, but rarely at any other time.

When Misha was young his family went to their dacha every summer, and he and his father would take the nets down from the attic and try to catch the migrating butterflies that filled the air. The old house was filled with his grandmother's china that really came from China, and the framed butterflies three generations of Shklovskys had caught as boys. Over time their scales fell away, and if you ran barefoot through the house the china would rattle and your feet would pick up wing dust.
-The History of Love, by Nicole Krauss

Have you ever been afraid of falling asleep because you're afraid you won't wake up?

That's not right. I'll wake up. I worry about falling asleep and not waking up in the same place.

( Dante Quiz. )