TAKE MY HAND

I woke up to darkness.

For a long time I didn’t think I was awake. But my eyes were moving and I was aware of my bed, so I must of been. I wondered what time it could be, but couldn’t find my phone in the dark.

I lay there for awhile, enjoying the memory of my dreams. Soon though I was wide awake but it was still dark. I opened and shut my eyes but besides the muscle movement there was no difference. I sat up and tried to look out my window but I couldn’t see any further than black.

I was beginning to suspect I was still dreaming when I heard my mother’s voice

“Dan? Dan!”

I rubbed my eyes but there was still nothing.

“I can’t see! Dan!” she called. Her room was closest to mine. I called back to her

“Mom?”

“Dan come over here I need your help, I can’t see!”

“Mom I can’t…. I can’t see anything either.”

There was silence then. I waved my hands in front of my face frantically saw only dark. I wasn’t scared, as much as confused. Had I gone blind in the middle of the night? I couldn’t understand how my mother was experiencing the same thing. I could hear her, stumbling in her room.

“Dan come in here!”

I explained again that I couldn’t see and struggled out of my bed. I’d grown up in this house, my room was my sanctuary. I navigated deftly from my bed to the hall but still crushed my toe against the door frame. It was dark, a power outage.

“Dan? Are you there?” she called, she must of been right next to me.

“Yeah mom, I’m here.” she grabbed my arm. My mothers hand was tiny, and I was much larger than her.

“Why is it so dark?” she asked me.

“I don’t know.” I said

“Where’s your cell phone?” she asked.

“I can’t find it.”

“Let’s find your brother and Dolly.” Dolly was our poodle. My mother held fast to me as we both wandered the dark

“Watch it, watch it… Dan hold on!”

We dragged our hands across the wall. Slowly inching our way into corners and end tables, trying to recall the map of our home with our minds. My younger brother Scott’s room was on the other side of the house. We stumbled and crashed our way through the house, flicking every light switch we discovered to no avail.

“Wait wait, the phone!” My mother exclaimed, remembering the landline.

The kitchen was treacherous, and my mother suffered a violent collision with her head. I held her and as she whimpered the fear began to set in.

The phone was on the hook, and I heard my mother slowly dial 9-1-1.

It was ringing and I called for Dolly. She was a big dog and always slept in my mom’s room. Dolly would follow my mother or my brother whenever they left the room and jumped up at any guest that entered the door.

But I hadn’t heard a trace of the dog since I woke. Not a sound.

The phone just continued to ring

“How can no one be picking up?”

I began to step away, freeing myself from her grip

“Dan don’t!” she held tighter. I put my hand on hers and responded

“I’m gonna look for Dolly.”

The phone continued to ring.

My mother’s loosened her grip, her tiny soft hand disappearing from beneath my own.

“Dolly…” I called.

I took tiny steps across the kitchen, and then got on my knees, feeling outwardly with my hands. I crawled until my fingers discovered her bowl and water dish. Right by it, as there always was, were her toys. I grabbed one and squeezed it, exhaling a loud whine and squeal that would drive the dog crazy.

But there was nothing. My mother had been startled by the sound and scolded me in the dark.

The phone was still ringing.

“Go get your brother-“ Mom whispered when I heard someone pick up the phone and answer.

“Hello.”

I heard it clearly in the dark, my eyes straining for every decibel. There was a noise in the background, and after the greeting it filled the dark kitchen with it’s static chatter. The dispatcher who answered left the hello hanging in the air, as if she had cut herself off.

“Yes hello? 911?” My mom stammered

There was no answer, only that upsetting buzz in the back of the line. I asked my mother what that was.

“Hello?” My mom repeated “I have an emergency my son and I, we need help.”

There was no answer. But I recognized that sound. That buzzing. More like ringing?

“You can’t see.” said the voice.

“Yes. How did you know?” Their voices were all that existed to me in the dark, hanging in the air “Is it a power outage or-”

“No.” said the voice on the phone, the ringing in the background.

Hundreds of people, calling at once.

“No one can see.” the dispatcher said, “No one can see anything.”

The words hung in the dark, echoed by the ringing lines.

She hung up and we were left in silence. And dark.

My mother took my arm again and we made our way to my brother’s room. Navigating without sight was dizzying, knowing the layout of our home wasn’t enough. Everything was either closer than we remembered or much further. Unbalanced by my mother’s hold, we stumbled into each other and into our surroundings. One step at a time, our hands against the wall or stretched out in front of us.

My brother was awake in his room, and calm.

He listened in silence as we told him what was going on, and what we heard on the phone

“Can you see anything?” I asked him.

“No.” he answered.

Mom and I inched our way around his room towards the sound of his voice.

“Take my hand man,” I said, reaching out towards him. I could feel the mattress and the sheets. He was silent and I couldn’t hear him moving, but when my hand found his arm he began to struggle.

“Let go of me,” a tone in his voice that stung.

“Relax-”

He began to struggle violently and he shouted in my face

“LET ME GO! LET ME OUT!”

I let go of him as he erupted in a tantrum.

“WAKE ME UP! WAKE ME UP!” he was shouting

My mother gripped my arm violently

“Scot! Scott! Stop that!” she begged him.

But he wouldn’t. He continued to try to wake himself. In the blackness his shouting terrified us. Our hearing had adjusted to the dark, and his wails rocked the foundation of this perspective. I tried to explain to him that he’s not dreaming, but I wouldn’t be heard. I felt my mother fall and I fell with her. We lay there in the Dark, listening to my brother’s screams until it came to a stop without warning.

The silence was an impact crater left from the screaming, and felt unbearably loud.

“Scott?” I asked

“Yes.” he answered.

“Are you okay?”

“I will be when I wake up.”

We couldn’t convince him this wasn’t a dream, but we could convince him to take our hand.

“We should try to find help.” I suggested

“No.” My mom said, insisting we stayed together, and she lead us back to the kitchen. There she tried calling numbers, friends and family for help. I sat on the kitchen floor, trying to rub vision back into my eyes.

When I was little I would press my palms agains my eyes, which would cause a kaleidoscope of shapes and lights to flash across my vision. In the dark I could still see that, the hues of purples and reds and yellows.

“I think it’s dark.” I said The phone lines ringing in the background, my mother dialing another number “I dont think we’re blind I just think its dark.”

“What about the moon?” my brother asked

I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t imagine a reason that the sun or moon could be extinguished. But the other possibility was a sudden and mysterious blindness. My brother asked if there was a difference between us being blind and the world going dark, and how we’d recognize it.

My mother tried more numbers, followed by more endless ringing

“Maybe it’s some kind of epidemic?” I suggested.

Through the phone we heard someone pick up.

“Hello?!” was the panicked voice on the line.

“Yes hello-“ my mom began, but the voice cut her off crying

“Oh thank God I found someone- We need help I- I can’t see- We’ve been in an accident-”

A second voice shouted in the background, a childs voice.

“I- I cant see anything I think I’m blind- please you have to call someone We cant see-“ The line went dead, and that dreaded silence returned.

My mother stopped calling for help after that.

“Dan?” my brother said

“Yes.”

“I don’t think this is a dream anymore.”

We stayed in the kitchen, the three of us. My mother served food from the fridge, which had begun to grow warm. My mother thought it was evidence of some sort of power outage.

I found it hard to focus, sitting the dark. My world was only what I could hear and touch. My mother was never far, often reaching out and grabbing my arm for reassurance. Scott sat on his own, I believe. In this dark, his silence was as if he didn’t exist. But he’d answered when called. My mother worried for Dolly.

“I don’t hear the birds either.” Scott pointed out.

I tried to remember how long ago I’d woken up but time was mute. A couple hours or half the day? I didn’t know how long we’d been sitting in the kitchen, how much time we’d spent stumbling from place to place.

“Do you hear that?” my mother asked. I hadn’t heard a thing and said as much. We listened in silence but nothing came.

“There was something- I heard someone.”

“Was it you Scott?” I asked

Silence

“Scott?”

“I’m here.” he answered.

I strained to hear what my mother heard

“There! Did you hear that?” she exclaimed

“No.” I answered, wishing I had.

“It sounded like….” but she trailed off, I could almost feel her listening for it.

This darkness reminded me of a game my brother and I played once.

We were at a park, and Scott had climbed the slide. I must have been six or seven and he was a couple years younger. I cant remember what I was thinking, it was clearly a stupid game. But I remember waiting for my brother at the bottom of the slide, looking up at him. When he came down of course he crashed right into my face, his sneakers slamming into my eyes. I remember everything going white, and my parents screaming at us. It was a dumb game, and nearly cost me my right eye. I was lucky to escape with only a few stitches.

Breaking the silence I tried to remind my brother about it, but he didn’t answer. I called out his name but the silence remained.

“Scott? Dan where’s your brother?” My mom asked, unable to hide the worry in her voice

“Scott!” I shouted

But there was only silence.

We shouted for several minutes before letting the silence take hold again.

“We have to find your brother.” My mom demanded

I felt her tiny hand grip my arm and we helped each other up. We explored our own home, calling for Scott. My hand dragging along the wall, a sore toe stretched out for any hazards.

“There! That noise! It’s right there!” My mother cried, digging her nails into my arm, but I had heard nothing, and another worry was forming inside.

I didn’t know where we were.

The living room wall had taken a strange turn I had not been expecting, and I was suddenly disoriented in my own home. My mother had left the navigating to me, as she was focused on catching her phantom sound. I didn’t recognize this corner and I didn’t know where I was.

In the dark we were turned around and the house felt larger than I pictured in my head. This wall, this room, I couldn’t picture where it was in the layout. I found a doorknob where there shouldn’t be one and met a wall where I expected stairs. We were lost.

“Mom… I don’t know where we are.”

She was silent but I could feel her grip on my arm

“Mom…” I put my hand on hers.

But the hand I felt was large, dry skinned with a firm grip. A hand I did not recognize.

I struggled against it and cried out

“Who are you?”

The hand let go of me without a struggle, but there was no answer. My arm could feel the imprint of the grip, but the moment it let go it melted into the black and dark.

I could hear only my pulse and my breath.

“Mom?!” Darkness and silence.

I crawled along the ground.

The darkness was a suffocating force. Walking was too disorienting, the fear of a collision too intense. I crawled inch by inch over a floor I could not recognize.

I heard things in the dark. Scurried footsteps. I heard the last reverberations of an echo, a call I had missed. The sound of chair dragging not far from me, the click of a door shutting. Once I heard a voice, someone struggling in the dark. There was a crash as they hit something and they cried out in reaction. I called out to them, hoping to hear my brother or my mother’s voice back, but was met with only silence.

As I crawled aimlessly in search of some recognizable point I found there was grass and dirt beneath me.

My brother had been right, there were no sounds of birds. No insects, no traffic, no humming of the power grid.

Only the dark, and myself, melting away into it.

In the distance I spotted a star. I didn’t know what I was looking at at first, I had spent an eternity in this blindness and the spectatled dot was not easily recognized. Like a white hole pricked into the black by a needlehead.

I was fixated on it, this beacon. No longer was I crawling aimlessly in the dark, I had a goal, a direction.

I crawled over the grass and sharp materials and wet, moving earth and asphalt. The light grew no bigger, and darkness remained my world. Not even so much as to allow me to see my own hands, or the path before me.

But I was undeterred.

And the light did grow nearer. And at last on the horizon, there were shapes. The darkness had made everything  flat, devoid of space. Though seeing shapes made my eyes sting and tear, a new hope was pouring into my being.

As I neared the light cast strange shadows and outlines of the world around me, one that appeared familiar but I could not recognize.

Then at last I could see.

And I saw.

And I cried.

And I screamed.

I tried to look away, but they would not let me.

They forced me to see.