Jenny's really gone batty with her Saturday Centus this time around. The only prompt is a picture (of sorts), and we've got 25 words to make sense of it. She calls it "Study in Black." I call it cruel!
∞§∞
Insomnia
She jerked awake.
Absorbed the night.
Pitch black.
So dark it threatened her.
Fumbled for daylight.
Flipped a switch.
Sobbed.
Acknowledged
again
(unwillingly)
her blindness.
∞§∞
Bookie's comment made me want to add this note: The poem can be taken literally or figuratively. Blindness is one of my deepest fears. Both kinds.
31 comments:
Wow! Interesting take on the photo!
oy, i really dont like nights like that...
Hmmm... those nights are always the longest nights of all.
I am reading this that the blindness wasn't just for one night. It is sad to me.
Guess I screwed up. I thought the line about "roll your eyes" was the prompt! I can REALLY relate to your piece, Sue! I have many sleepless nights!!
You read it just as I conceived it, Bookie. But I left room for it to be figurative, if anyone wanted to take it that way.
=)
This is scary! One of my fears, too.
Sue, this is kind of dark for you... no pun intended. I love that you have the ability to take your writing in many directions.
Hope I don't get "fired" by Miss Jenny today...I didn't really BREAK the rules, just re-interpreted them. LOL
feelings of insomnia, the dread of the endlessness in it, captured well with the endless realization of being blind
yep...been there with the insomnia...and with the blindness as well, metaphorically
Wow, I was taken back by the ending...very good Sue. Very sad too. I don't know how you come up with these awesome takes on those prompts!
Oh that would be maddening and cruel! Good one Sue! I'm Terrified just thinking of the scenario!~Ames
Mine too, Sue. Very well written piece. (As always!)
oooo. That was totally awesome. I love it.
This is very powerful, very thought provoking. In other words, it's great.
Happy Halloween weekend, Sue.
xoRobyn
oh wow ... one of my biggest fears as well ... brilliantly done
Wow, Sue,
You really hit a nerve here. Who is not afraid of becoming blind?
My father became legally blind the last years of his life. I know he was frustrated by no longer being able to read any of his vast collection of books or regonising who came into the room.
But thankfully, his hearing was intact. We could read aloud for him. We could instruct everyone to say 'Hi it's so-and-so here' and always remember him in a conversation at the kitchen table. Such loving details can do a lot to soothe the loss of sight.
But what if you are alone, as many older people are? I spoke on the phone to an older distant relative about the practical problems that she had after becoming blind because of glaucoma. What you have described in your centus is actually what many newly blinded persons experience. She said that it is one thing to experience darkness of when the electricity goes. But this is permanent. The lights never come on again. She had to get help from her children to arrange her home so that everything had a given place and that she knew where everything was and could feel her way to everything.
As a visual artist, I think that I would grieve the loss of my sight.
But I once knew a woman artist, a lovely painter, who lost her sight because of a bleeding ulcer. (Her blood loss damaged her eyes, her retina and even optic nerve.) Here again, I tried to always include her at a table converstion, and tell her where we were going (that is if there was a step down or up) when we were out taking a walk. At one point she atmitted to me her sorrow for becoming blind and we both cried in each others arms.
She had never seen my face. But using a pair of teater-binoculars and the rests of her sight, she could briefly, see what I looked like.
Excellent take on this, quite difficult prompt.
Best wishes & hugs,
Anna
For the benefit of other readers:
Anna's SC wk 78 'A Study in Black'
Wow! The ending took me by surprise! How poignant!
Sad and hard hitting...loved this piece.
The end was such a shock. I'm reading along, thinking, Ugh, those nights are horrible, and then I think, Thank God I'm not blind. Very well done. laurie
Master crafter of words!
Perfect response! I too hate the thought of blindness. We just has Rosemary over for dinner tonight and it reminded me again just how awful it must be for her, never to be able to read, only seeing outlines of people and having to memorize the sound of their voices to indentify them, not being able to see what you are eating. She is fortunate that she can at least see light. But certainly not at we see it. She has tried to describe to me what she does see and it makes me cry. Anyway, I really did like your take on this one.
Well, that was 'black' in every sense of the word. You always surprise me. Have you ever thought of charging for tours of your brain? I'd pay.
Perfect Halloween tale, Sue!!!
In all reality, I work mainly in ophthalmology. I love when we do surgeries and the patients are so grateful afterwards for their sight! Just last week a patient was crying post-op and the recovery nurse asked her if she was in pain. She answered, "No, I can see now!" Those kind of stories make the hard days worth it!
happy monday! just swinging through to see if i missed something...smiles.
Ouch, Sue! This is exquisitely painful.
Namaste..........cj
Being blind is one of my biggest fears...this scared me a little.
I can relate too well to this one. The insomnia, not the blindness. Although I do have a friend who is going blind and I worry a lot about her. How dreadful that would be!
Hi Sue,
I'm back to say that my photos are up. Please come back and visit if you have time.
Best wishes,
Anna
Anna's SC wk 78 'A Study in Black'
I loved all your pics of your kids for halloween
this would be more scary than imaginary horror
Thanks for your visit to my blog
Oh no. First I read this and took it literally, and then I read it and took it figuratively.
Either way, I read this and thought, 'Geez, that Sue can really, really write!'
You're amazing.
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