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The closet screeched. She winced, but pulled out her jeans and a light blue sweater. On the inside of each tag, her name had been sewn - “Karina Adams.” Her mother was always trying to make sure that everything was in order, “a place for everything and everything in its place.”
She pushed through the hallway, paintings along the wall blending as though they’d always been there.
“Going to Manhattan Mall,” she scrawled. “Be back before dark.”
She held her ticket and waited for her car to come. She was in the midst of a large group of people, staring straight ahead and not looking at each other. The large gaping holes on either side of her made her nervous, as though some giant serpent from the Hudson would slither out of it. She had seen too many horror movies based in the subway to truly enjoy the experience.
The train could be heard before it was seen, roaring into the station and halting for people to enter or leave. She felt the people behind her herding her in, forcing her into a seat along the side. Clad in dark colors, they all seemed like clones, discretely not looking at each other.
It pushed off and she swayed with it. The lights above flickered, and the shadows slithered around the bottoms and edges of the people, between their fingers, under their hair, in their eyes. She felt like she was in a train full of ghouls. She rocked back and forth, trying to rid herself of this feeling of compression and horror. She needed to get out. More than halfway to her destination, it was all right to leave if she so desired; she had given herself extra time.
The subway car came to another stop and she jumped out as soon as the doors puffed open. From there, she rushed out of the subway, pushing people as she went. Flocks and flocks of people - an entire organism of swaying, noise-making, twitching people - all trapped underground like rats in an extensive underground cage.
The fresh air picked her up and twisted her soul away from her cramped body. She sighed and paced away from the foul entryway from which people still entered and exited, like a mouth breathing in and out. She picked her way through silent, snowy masses of people - each slightly different, yet completely the same, being pushed forward as though gravity swept over sidewalks.
The gates to Central Park became like a beacon of refuge against her city. She carefully waited at an intersection, allowing the light to change and the river of taxis to case before she skittered wearily across the street, aware of eyes watching through their tinted windows. The opening of the park consumed her grateful body whole. She felt like a woolen strightjacket had been removed from her person. Her breaths became more full, more fluent, more easily released. She smiled for the first time in an hour.
The wind pushed aggressively through the air, sending undulations through the uncut grass. Across the field, children in pastel-colored snow fleeces played in a sandbox. They were all working together to create a large, murky, castle-like form. Their respective mothers, fathers, or baby-sitters carefully watched them and the surrounding area.
Karrie smiled. The park was such a peaceful, beautiful place. No harm, seen or unseen, could reach her there. She walked along a path, nodding at smiling people and saying hello to teenagers.
Luckily, she had given herself plenty of extra time to get to the mall. She had enough left to linger. Although almost hit by a Frisbee, she made it across a stretch of grass. The park seemed to have a different atmosphere pressure; she could walk taller there than anywhere else, even in her own home.
A kite, light purple in color with blue and green ribbons fluttering through the air, as though chasing it, jostled its way through the air. She watched it and traced its line down to a young girl with blonde hair in pigtails and overalls. Her route led her right to the girl and the clump of white birches adjacent to her.
The trees were beginning to tentatively bud, emerging into the spring. Their skinny branches seemed to interlace in little clumps, appearing to chatter amongst themselves like schoolgirls at lunch. They made up a picturesque backdrop for the girl and her kite, as well as the man, dog, and bench beside her.
They had not been visible across the field when she had started out. The man wore a brown wool trenchcoat, a fishing hat, tattered black shoes, and kakhis. The dog was much more exceptional. Sleeping, his body heaved up and down with every breath. Copper and gold strands of fur absorbed the sunlight and refracted it back in glittering rays.
“You have a beautiful dog,” she told him, shifting her weight back and forth.
The man pushed his hat back and patted the dog. She could see, for the first time, his eyes. They were brown, fuzzy, and disoriented. She realized with a jolt that he was without sight.
“He’s a beautiful fellow, purrs like a kitten, and feels soft. He’s the dog of dreams,” he replied, smiling in her direction. His voice rasped slightly, like a finger rubbing on sandpaper, but it was deep and kind. He held out an arm to her. “Dr. Joie, psychologist and artist.”
She shook his hand. “My name is Karina... my friends call me Karrie.”
“Would you like to stay and chat with me and Lilac?” he asked cordially.
“I have to go to the mall soon.”
“What do teenagers do at these ‘malls’?”
“Oh, go around, look at stuff, try on stuff, sometimes buy stuff,” she murmured. Suddenly, she felt like a blathering idiot. She had never felt like that before. Not only that, but his sightless gaze was relentless. She looked away, at the girl’s kite.
The girl hadn’t said anything to either of them the duration of the conversation. Now she turned around to look at Karrie with light brown eyes. “Do you like the colors you see? The lines?”
Karina looked at the girl, dumbfounded.
“Dr. Joie did all sorts of paintings, you know, good color, careful composition.”
A glance over at Dr. Joie revealed his stare hadn’t discontinued, that he remained absorbing even though he couldn’t see.
“Are you two related?” Karrie asked.
“Lilac’s my granddaughter,” Dr. Joie put in. “Even though I cannot see any longer, she allows me to see though her eyes, to experience what I no longer can.”
She smiled so hard her eyes crinkled. What kind and beautiful people. She gazed up at the kite again and blinked. The world became fuzzy. All she could see were the colors, the moving shapes, the lines, and the arc of Lilac’s kite as it fell.
She started running, flying like wildfire away from the fallen kite, out of the park. Finally, things became clearer, and the mall was a few blocks down. She welcomed the sight of people, people with sight, even if they chose not to use it, for their gazes did not terrify her with their fullness.
She pulled open the door, finally home from the mall. Her mother was smoking a cigarette by the radio, quietly writing out bills and checks.
She walked down the hallway into her room, noticing as though for the first time the paintings her mother had placed along the walls. Right next to her room was a big, colorful print. She was trying to make it out in the darkness when she smelled the smoke of her mother. The smoke always came before the sight of her mother. Maybe that was what it was like to be blind, smelling or sensing people, never seeing them at all. Her mother flicked on the hallway light.
“Need anything? Did you have a good time?”
“Yeah,” Karrie replied absentmindedly. She looked at the painting that had been revealed in the light. It was of a girl at the top of a bench on top of a hill, her back arched, watching her kite soar through the sky. A dog lay underneath the bench, sleeping. In the corner, in white lettering, was lettering that said, “ ‘Enlightenment,’ c. 1945, by Dr. Edgar Joie, Central Park, New York City.”
A kite stretched into the sky, making its imprint on the darkness. She walked as quickly as her feeble body would allow.
A young girl watched her kite soar in accordance with the elements. She smiled up at it, her light brown eyes entranced and full of light.
“Want a turn?” Lilac asked Karrie.
Karrie nodded and took hold of the rope. They watched the kite soar high.
