At camp, Adrienne H. had just woken up, and I was amused by her general physical / hygienic disarray. As far as girls without their make-up go, she really was unrecognizable for a few moments, as every surface on her face seemed to bulge or recede in the wrong places. She said a few things to me while looking over her shoulder and walking away, as if I were more of an afterthought than the words she spoke, and flitted away across the wooden floorboards in her nightgown. I watched her disappear through a door, and approached the door to follow. As I reached for the doorknob, a glint of light caught my eye, and my sight followed that glint as it sort of floated near my left shoulder. Upon closer inspection, the tiny shimmer looked to be either one of those cotton tufts that blow around in the Spring, or, even stranger, a small, silver, spinning coin.
Disinterested, I swatted the spinning coin with my hand, away from me, and proceeded to open the door to follow Adrienne. But then something struck my neck! It felt as if someone had come up behind me and jabbed the right side of my neck, or launched a blunt projectile at it. Seeing nothing around me, I realized that what I had previously swatted was an actual fairy, like Tinkerbell, and in retaliation she had attacked me! Although I suffered no physical injury beyond the immediate discomfort, matters soon became worse, as I lost my sight completely.
I was blind! The fairy had evidently put a curse on me, as a punishment for my aggression.
Now that everything was pitch black, I got real scared. I didn’t want to be blind!
But I didn’t believe I was truly, irreversibly blind either…I didn’t want to believe it! So I pushed and tumbled towards where I thought the door to the outside porch would be, because I was panicking and, like most people, I needed to get to an open space where I wouldn’t feel confined and threatened.
Stepping lightly, I felt my way around bed posts - round, brass bed posts, cold to the touch. The wooden floors were also cold, it was so early that morning. Nervous, I found the porch door, a wooden frame loose with age and decay. I considered that only the room had become dark, and once I opened the door, light would naturally pour in, my salvation. Pulling the door open, inwards…nothing. I still saw black, forever in front of me.
Until, the black grew into deep blue, through the glass pane of the secondary screen door. Then a brighter shade of blue! Then white streaks! It was morning rising, and I could see! I could see the woods beneath the house - the trees of Savannah, Georgia - and the dog, the yellow lab that was jumping up to lick my face!
Standing there in my shorts, I could see again. The dog greeted me…my opening the door let him in, and let me out.
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