Shattered

**Fyre Draic** · 04-01-2006,01:13 AM

The sound of glass crashing to the floor...
A heartbeat thudding...silence is deafening
The phone rings...startling me as I pause to realize...
I have no phone.

Sudden panic rushes through my veins...I sit up in my overstuffed easy chair...straining my eyes to see something that moved in the sullen darkness...ha ha ha!
'Crazy old fool,' I say to myself.
You see, I've been blind for the last thirteen years.

Yet, every evening I pick up the same dusty novel I had been reading since before the accident. I am not reading. Merely turning the pages and remembering the story. Yes...page 247...chapter 11...the boy is on his way to the Underworld. Only four pages to go...but two chapters remain in the book. What is that horrid smell? I can't remember when I didn't smell it. (The phone rings again)...

Must get myself a phone. The sound of a stream somewhere in the distance...not so. It must be the sound of my own blood rushing through my brain...the intense silence has enhanced my skills of hearing even the *****roach who is waiting at my feet. Anticipating my feeble movements...hoping for a crumb to fall from my teacake.

Once again, I hear the phone. Then the crash. Then, the darkness.
These are the shattered memories I hold of my last day as a mortal being.

Yes, there is a phone. And there are people all around me. The little boy in the kitchen has just told his mother he had dropped a glass. The thudding heartbeat is only the family pet dog...his leg thumping on the floor as it scratches away the annoying fleas.
The sound of the stream...mother is drawing a bath for herself.

My blindness was caused by my Sweet Nastya...When she told me she could not wait. She struck my heart so violently...it was the stroke. First, the blindness. Then...starvation.... and...slow...agonizing........death.

My spirit remains in this horrid world...with only the last of my memories...my book...this unsavoured blindness...and my easychair.

I hear them talk of me at times....they know I am here....they are unafraid...not me...I am full of fear...not to know the warmth of the sun...the rush of water on my skin...to see the children when they play and laugh. Only the endless darkness...and perhaps a third family will eventually move in...(muse)...maybe I will have some fun with the next occupants. But for now, I am still....
shattered.