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There were, without a doubt, certain people whom he secretly wished he could still see. His ex-girlfriend, for example—she would be a pleasant sight. The first time he had seen her, done up in her gymnastics outfit, he thought to himself that she, more than anyone else he had ever seen, radiated beauty and happiness—were he to hold her image in his memory, carry it with him everywhere, then nothing could ever harm him. Of course this was going too far. It was an unreasonable expectation, and later led to heart-crushing disappointment. The last time he saw her, after she had left him for her gymnastics coach, was at an Olympic qualifying meet, which she would go on to win by a slim margin. He took a picture of her on his camera phone. He kept the picture in his phone for three months before losing it, along with all of his contacts, when the phone fell into a pitcher of root beer. He reached his arm into the pitcher, soaking the sleeve of his shirt, frantically flipping the phone open. But the screen was blank. And two weeks later, he was blind.
He also wished he could still see his parents, who were always very supportive, along with his aunt, who was kind enough to let him stay with her while he adjusted to the life of blindness. It had happened quickly—a freak virus transmitted by mosquito bite—and had left him with a new sense of bitterness, one which piled atop that which he had already been carrying (from the gymnast, who was now headed to the Olympics in Beijing). He sat quietly through classes at the Blind Center, spending hours afterwards in the music room, plunking out minor chords on the piano. His free days were spent sulkily, his mind wrapping itself around the concept that things had happened for the best, and that prior to the mosquito bite he had surrounded himself with people he didn't actually much care for.
For a long period afterward life seemed to contract, shrinking down to a level that was easy to pass without much incident or confrontation. He hardly spoke to anyone, but after a while that hardly felt to be an issue. This went on, days and weeks passing quietly, the world kept an arm's length, until one day he met someone who broke through. She was a volunteer at the Blind Center, and had walked in one night as he sat at the piano. The two spoke for an hour and half. He heard his voice for the first time in ages, felt it rising from his chest, felt the warmth of her in front of him. They met for lunch the next day, and then the next, where after more talk it came out that as a child, in France, she had competed as a gymnast for her school's team. Shocked, he rose from the table and hurried out of the room, making his way down the street, back to his aunt's house. With the door closed behind him, he held his hands over his ears and began to laugh uncontrollably. Gymnasts, he thought. Never again.
