four meetings

Hey guys, any and all input would be appreciated, thanks so much!!

Two couples sit in two doctors’ offices. Two mothers and two fathers listen anxiously to words spoken to them. One couple hears “sick”; the other, “nothing wrong”. Both verdicts are followed by an apology. Both verdicts are bad news.

Spring

The boy sits in the back seat of the car. He does not talk to his father, who is driving, or his mother, who is sitting in the passenger seat. He is not listening to music or looking out the window. He is not thinking about school or girls or food. He is not thinking about anything.

He doesn’t know where he’s going or why he’s dressed in his good suit. He put it on because his mother told him to. He didn’t ask questions.
He doesn’t play sports. He doesn’t play video games or watch television. He doesn’t have a dog. Every day he does his homework and eats dinner and takes a shower and goes to bed.

His parents love him very much. They are worried about him. They don’t know where the lethargic apathy came from. It settled slowly and imperceptibly. They offer him things but he declines them all. They send him to doctors but they say there’s nothing wrong with him. A little depressed, perhaps, but the boy refuses pills. And really, there isn’t anything wrong him.

The boy just doesn’t care.

The car reaches its destination and joins a row of shiny parked cars. The family joins the fray of businesspeople chatting and pecking at pretty food. The boy meets his father’s associates and their children. The children think he’s boring; the adults think he’s polite, albeit a little dead around the eyes.

The boy is introduced to his father’s employer. The man is very tall and rests a large hand on the shoulder of a girl, presumably his daughter. The girl is wearing sunglasses. The boy is introduced to the girl. She says hello and smiles in the direction of the boy and his family. She is looking too far off to the right. The boy realizes that she cannot see. He greets her in a loud voice.
“I’m blind, not deaf, *******.”

The luncheon is long and tedious. The boy walks aimlessly towards the cliffs that the large stone house is perched upon. He notices the blind girl sitting there, far from the edge. He briefly considers turning back, but nothing has much of an effect on him, especially other people. His parents, perhaps, but not blind girls. He walks over and sits a ways off, trying to be quiet. “Who’s there?” the blind girl calls. “The *******,” the boy responds. The girl laughs. The boy is suddenly overcome with intense desire. He longs to walk over to the girl, lift his hand up to her face, and

Rip the sunglasses from her eyes. The boy is surprised that he wants to do something. He wonders for a moment if she even has eyes, or if behind the sunglasses lurk empty sockets. Or worse still, dead eyes. The boy does not wonder this long, because he doesn’t really care.

Summer

This time the family is present for a private dinner. They eat and then sit around chatting idly. The girl has disappeared. The boy’s parents suggest he go for a walk around the grounds, after all, they are quite extensive. The boy does not feel like walking but he does humour his parents now and again so he walks up to the cliff’s edge. Again the girl sits, still keeping distance from the precipice, although this time she greets the boy with a “hello *******” and shifts over as if inviting him to sit beside her. The boy doesn’t notice but walks over anyways. They do not speak. The boy fantasizes briefly about taking off the girl’s

Sunglasses but only for a split second; all this conscious and unnecessary thought is bothersome. Eventually the girl decides to take the boy on a tour of the grounds. She tells him this and reaches for his arm. He ignores this or possibly does not register it, but the girl insists because she’s blind, remember, *******? The boy has no qualms about touching the girl so he allows her to take his arm and lead him throughout the property, first through the grounds, then through the house. It truly is a beautiful estate but this is lost on the boy. He doesn’t actually see anything until he is led to the final room of the house. The girl makes to leave but the boy stops. Then he asks her “Who plays?” “I do,” the girls responds, surprised to hear him speak unprompted, or possibly surprised at that which has acted as a prompt, “And yes, blind people can play too.” “Play,” the boy commands, not sure what he is doing but not willing to ponder it. The girl sits at the bench, places her hands on the keys, and after a moment plays. The piece isn’t complicated, just a simple melody accompanied by an alberti bass line. The boy moves to sit beside the girl. “What was it?” he asks. “I wrote it,” she tells him. “Teach me.” The girl places the boy’s right hand on the keyboard, and, placing her own over it, plays the piece, over and over again, slowly. The irony of the situation is not lost on the boy and he remembers that he used to enjoy irony. When he has memorized the treble part he moves to the other side of the bench and places the girl’s left hand on his. He does not want the contact; he simply wants to learn the chords.

When the family gets home the boy does not head to his room as usual. He walks to a small room in the furthest corner of the house. He sits in the room he has not entered in... years?... and plays. Sweeping and soaring and crashing. The father and mother stand far from the room and wonder if they are in a dream. They love to hear their son play; they encouraged and nudged and pushed him, perhaps over the edge, they realize now. The boy exits the room and takes a shower.

Fall

The boy cannot remember attending a birthday party. He sits through the obligatory food and entertainment. As the parents sip wine and the other children break into their cliques, the girl and the boy head to the cliff’s edge. The girl has shed her birthday hat but keeps her sunglasses.

“Were you always blind?” “No. I’m sick, glaucoma, it caused the blindness.” “Do you miss it?” “Yes.” “You’re not missing anything, really.” “No, I know I’m not. When you lose one sense, you make up for it with all the others. So I get just as much out of the world as you do.” The girl explains to the boy that she can’t see the ocean swirling far beneath their feet, but she can hear the crashing waves, feel the moist air, smell the sharp water, taste the salty spray.

“What about people?” the boy asks. He is curious.

“I can hear you.” the girl says. “You have a quiet voice, but strong enough.” She reaches up to feel the contours of his face with an experienced hand and nods. “Thin. Average features, really, large mouth if anything, good ears.” She leans in to smell him. “Clean. Detergent and soap, no cologne. Comfortable.” The girl reaches up now, and her lips brush against the boy’s. She leans back and hesitates for a moment, searching for an adjective. The boy waits patiently. The girl decides to go with “cold” and “dry” even though neither are really tastes. The boy considers pointing this out to her but decides against it, because she probably knows and it doesn’t really make a difference.

Two hearts beat evenly. Two stomachs sit exactly where they are supposed to with nothing in them but birthday cake. Two sets of cheek are cool and if they appear flushed, it is simply from the autumn air.

On the ride home, the boy thinks with a smirk that even after she kissed him, the only thing he wants to do to the girl is remove her goddamn sunglasses. He smiles at the irony. His mother notices in the rear view mirror and is happy.

Winter

The boy is not surprised when his mother tells him to put on his suit. He is always dressed in it when he visits the girl. He does not wonder how he will sit on a cliff covered in ice and snow. He doesn’t think that far ahead yet. When the family reaches the girl’s house, he doesn’t notice the sombre apparel of the guests. He doesn’t notice these things yet. He would probably notice if somebody was wearing sunglasses.

The boy follows the guests into the house. They move silently and purposefully through the halls. He doesn’t know what is happening but follows complacently. He feels something he hasn’t felt in so long: vague eagerness. The family moves down the line shaking hands until they reach the coffin. The girl lies inside. The boy feels another emotion he hasn’t felt in so long: sadness, not at all vague, but sharp and concentrated. He considers removing the girl’s sunglasses. He decides against it, and moves off through the house to find the music room.