Blinded

He rested for several hours, although, despite being in a deep sleep, distant voices woke him up. He was drenched in sweat, hearing voices again, but this time closer. He opened the bedroom door and the voice was louder, he couldn’t understand what’s being said, but yes, it was here in his flat, he deduced that someone had snuck into the house taking advantage of the broken door.

“A burglar!” he thought worriedly.

He had some computer equipment worth more than fifteen thousand euros, he was going to find out about the “crook”, he took a heavy lamp from the bedside table and went quietly to the kitchen where the noise was coming from. He entered and found the individual on his back, as he was not that brave, he wanted to avoid a confrontation, he didn’t hesitate and gave him a strong blow on the head. The delinquent fell to the floor unconscious and a trickle of blood that flowed from his head, quickly invaded the kitchen floor. The sight of so much blood frightened him.

“I’ve killed him,” he thought.

He knelt down and turned the body over, leaving it on its back.

“Shit, it’s the neighbor!”

I didn’t even know his name; I only knew him from "hello" and “goodbye” in the corridor. He took the thief’s pulse and didn’t find it, he wasn’t breathing, and he was indeed dead.

He panicked and a thousand thoughts sprang to mind: the police, the arrest, the trial, the prison…

“Keep calm, Rapha,” he thought aloud.

He could claim it was self-defense, that he was under the influence of strong medication, plus what the hell was he doing to the neighbor in his house, snooping around? But what if he wasn’t dead, he wasn’t a doctor. The best thing was to ask for help, so he picked up his cell phone and dialed 112, the line was busy. He tried again with 061, the line was busy, then he dialed 092, this one did give a call, although they didn’t take it.

“What a shameful country,” he thought.

He tried 091, a recording told him to call back after a few minutes. He decided to focus on 112 and dialed again, busy, he was pressing redial for a few minutes and nothing.

The man looked more closely at the neighbor, and from the pool of blood that had run through the kitchen and the increasing paleness of his face, he knew for sure that he had died. He decided to go down to the street to ask for help, and as soon as he left the doorway he ran into a man.

“Help me,” he said.

His interlocutor replied in a bad mood:

“What, are you blind too? Another one with the little joke? Well, fuck you!”

And he walked away, tapping away from the sidewalk with his long white cane.

Rapha didn’t understand anything, suddenly he noticed a strange commotion and when he paid attention, he noticed the landscape, it was dantesque. A multitude of vehicles had collided with each other, others had merged by great impacts, unrecognizable, some were smoking, others were burning, and others were embedded in the shops and commercial premises. A car from a well-known French manufacturer hung dangerously from the slope of an access ramp to an underground parking lot.

People were constantly asking for help and assistance. They moved clumsily and senselessly, stumbling over the untidy tangle of cars, twisted irons, vehicle parts and pieces, fenders, mirrors and torn doors, various scrap metal scattered on the asphalt.

Some people were engulfed in flames, others lay motionless on the ground, bloodied, and others skidded and fell comically into the roadway from the layer of oil and debris spilled by the wrecked cars. Others, frightened, remained inside the wrecked vehicles. Some pedestrians were huddled together, crowded around, forming a strange gathering, like a melee at a rugby match.

He was deeply impressed by a bus that had collided with one of the busiest stops, crushing and running over a large group of citizens, sowing the sidewalk of mutilated bodies in different formats, amputated limbs and viscera bathed in blood.

In another area of the street, he observed a woman fall down a flight of steps, remaining motionless on the ground. Another man was seen sinking into a construction ditch, another stumbled over a carpet of glass from a broken shop window, cutting his hands and arms several times. Suddenly a smoking vehicle exploded, knocking out the people around it and causing a deadly shower of scrap metal and debris that reached another group nearby.

He turned his head to look down the street and the scene was similar all over the avenue, with several fires causing a smoky fog.

Rapha was petrified by the surprise, what had happened, no matter how much he thought about it, he didn’t know what was happening. Surprisingly someone collided with him and took him by the arm, with great anguish he begged and pleaded for help. Another stumbled behind him and grabbed him by the waist, crying out for help. A very close individual braced in the air and managed to grab him by the other wrist, while a boy of about seven years of age hugged his thigh, and almost in unison, in front, a mature lady of about fifty years of age hugged her neck tightly. Rapha was trapped, surrounded and while everyone was shouting, he tried to get away with it without success. He could not move, they were hurting him and he felt very overwhelmed, he tried to reason with them but they had entered into a kind of collective hysteria, everyone was talking at the same time making communication impossible. He couldn’t stand it anymore, more people were coming, so he chose to lose his balance and throw himself to the ground dragging them all. He managed to get some of them to let go, where it was easier for him to get rid of the rest and roll a few meters. He got up quickly, sore and eroded, and turned the corner.

He was trying to get over the shock when suddenly someone collided with him again and grabbed his arm tightly while imploring and pleading for help. He recognized him right away, he was the manager of the supermarket on the ground floor of his building.

“What’s the matter with you, neighbor? What happened?” he asked.

“I can’t see, I can’t see anything, there’s no light, everything is dark, I can’t open my eyes,” he said.

“What do you mean you can’t see, something has fallen inside you, some liquid or sand?” Rapha replied as he looked straight into his eyes.

His eyelids were closed and somewhat swollen, his eyelashes were like a welded together yellowish, viscous paste that oozed from his tears.

“No, the blinding light, the blinding light!” he repeated nonsensically.

Rapha still didn’t understand anything and the man was saying incoherent things.

“What blinding light? Calm down and tell me everything so that I can help you,” he said.

The manager calmed down a bit, told him how he was in his supermarket, saying goodbye to some customers, when suddenly everything turned white, a powerful light suddenly appeared and invaded everything for a few endless seconds. Then a great pain appeared in his eyes and from that moment he had lost his vision, he was blind, it was very difficult to open his eyes, even if he managed to open them, he still couldn’t see anything. He also told him how he heard the brakes, the beeping of the vehicles, the collisions and the shouting. He asked him if he had asked for help, and he answered that he had, but no one had come.

It was extremely hot, unusual for that time of year, Rapha was still drenched in sweat and it was very difficult for him to think and make decisions. He let go of the manager’s arm and headed down the street, while the manager shouted again for help. He kept walking, eluding and avoiding everyone in his path, he had learned his lesson.

As he passed a parked vehicle, he noticed that the driver was repeatedly trying to connect to emergencies on his “hands free”, the lines were not working, that story sounded close to him. As he watched this scene, he deduced that no one would come to help, everyone would be calling the emergency lines, and what if the help services were the same and they had also lost their sight, what if there was no one to help them, what if he was alone to take care of everyone? There were so many people, how could he organize everything, what to do first, what decisions to make, he began to feel the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, he panicked and ran.

As he ran down the avenue aimlessly, the view of the adjacent streets was very similar: smoke, screams, disorder, chaos, junk, inert bodies, blood, and human clutter. Rapha stopped running immediately, his extra kilos and the suffocating heat prevented him from doing so. He was very thirsty, so he went to a nearby bar. But before he entered, a tearful old woman, with unusual speed and skill, grabbed his arm and asked for his help. Rapha looked at her in terror and without thinking, almost instinctively lied to her:

“Help me, I got blind!” shouted Rapha.

The old woman let him go, realizing that he was in the same situation as her, and that he would be of little use to her. Rapha, surprised by the ease with which she had solved the problem, entered the empty bar. There was a television connected, it only emitted an image of an empty table, without sound. He changed channels looking for information about what had happened, in some stations the programming was normal, films, series, documentaries. On others it was time for the news, but there was no news, in one they focused on the floor, in another you could see a room with people feeling up the walls, the panorama was comical to some extent.

He poured beer into a glass and drank several one while thinking. The man felt overwhelmed, overtaken by events, powerless, and was convinced that his help would be like a drop of water in the immense desert, that he could do little. He already had his own problems with the last night’s events, and he felt resentment and hatred towards this society that had tripped him up so much during his life. He had always felt marginalized, humiliated, why would he help them now? He thought that perhaps now was his time, he was overcome by a certain sense of revenge. At that moment a young and beautiful girl entered the bar, groping and stroking the air. She was wearing slender thighs because of a very short miniskirt that flapped when she moved, leaving her buttocks naked with only a thong in between. Rapha got up and hesitated, the effects of alcohol clouded his reasoning, he remained pensive for a few long seconds. He approached her from behind with stealth, pushed her and imprisoned her tightly on a table, the surprised girl stirred with all her strength as she screamed with great desperation, he didn’t care about the woman’s screams, as they overlapped with those of the street. With his weight he prevented the girl’s struggle and waited patiently, after a few minutes the girl’s strength began to decline and with her defenses down, he took advantage of the situation and slipped clumsily inside her. After a few brief and strong swings, he relieved himself after many years of abstinence. The young woman only had strengths to cry, Rapha fastened his fly and invited her to sit down to rest, he gently grabbed her arm to guide her but the young woman drew strength from her own weakness, becoming agitated again in an attack of hysteria and feeling liberated, she ran away madly, tripping over chairs and tables until she finally collapsed on the floor, bruised and exhausted.

Rapha left the bar while turning his head in all directions to make himself sure that no one would have witnessed the events, leaving the poor girl there amidst pitiful sobs, thinking that her first time had been hideous and too fleeting.

The depraved man walked without remorse, convinced of the justification of his actions, of how badly society had behaved towards him, about morality or immorality, which he had to adapt to the new situation and if it favored him, he would take advantage. He owed nothing to anyone, it felt good to him, almost euphoric, sure of himself, he thought that his personal problems, inferiority complex, could be diluted by the unexpected turn of events. He had no obligation to help the community of which he never felt part. Besides, he was not a hero, nor a fireman, nor a policeman, nor a doctor… doctor! At that moment he remembered Alice, the intense, good and shocking impression she had made on him. She did deserve to be saved and helped, he was capable of making an effort, and he could be a hero…her hero, so he would find a way to get her attention.

Looking for an available car, Raphael found one with the keys in, and its radio was playing low volume. Perhaps it was broadcasting a news program, he tuned in to the stations, various programs were playing, probably from those pre-recorded programs, the announcer was asking for help on a channel because she had gone blind. He kept looking and on one got some vague news, the announcer, who had also lost his sight, but not his nerves, was repeatedly broadcasting some sort of emergency report. He told how most of the phone lines were overloaded with calls. That it all started with a powerful blinding light of which they were unaware of the causes. He ventured several hypotheses, it could be because of an atomic bomb, an unlikely possibility, and the country did not suffer direct threats or reasons for any aggression. Nor was any new type of terrorist attack ruled out. Perhaps the entry of a large meteorite into the Earth’s atmosphere would cause a large flare, another possibility was due to an unknown weather effect or some anomaly caused by the Sun such as a huge solar flare. The announcer continued to give some basic advice, to stay at home because it was the safest place, the one we knew best by heart, not to venture out into the street because it was dangerous and to wait for help.

“Ha! Help…" Rapha thought ironically.

He started the car and began to drive through the desolate street, it was impossible to move forward, having to avoid the other parked vehicles, since no one was driving. The worst thing was the people who were in the middle of the road and moved very slowly, when he managed to get a pedestrian to leave the path, on the other hand was again interposed another, it would take ages to reach the hospital. He had to find another means of transport, he found the possibility of running over people very excessive. He abandoned the car and walked for a while; the man was already beginning to adapt to the new situation by avoiding the area of action of those affected. He made as little noise as possible and, if he had no choice, Rapha would shout for help, just like the others.

He found a moped, he had never been skillful at driving them, although it might help. He drove clumsily to the hospital, and of course this vehicle was much more practical with which was easier to avoid people and vehicles.

He went into the emergency room, it was very much like the zombie movies he liked so much, chaos and disorder everywhere. Of course, the health staff was also affected, no one helped anyone, and everyone had enough to do. She wandered through the corridors, the rooms and the doctors’ offices, she couldn’t find her, where would she be, she suddenly remembered that last night Alice had told another colleague that she was leaving at eight in the morning, so she thought maybe she could be in the car park. He went there by bike but didn’t find her. She looked around a bit, until she saw an area under construction with a sign that said staff parking, forgive the hardships, we are working to improve. He approached and suddenly saw her, she was sitting on a curb in the shade, with a big pair of sunglasses covering her eyes, someone was with her, and he assumed it was a companion.

“Hello, do you need help?” Rapha asked.

Alice stood up with a start, between frightened and surprised.

“Yes, yes, we’ve gone blind after the great glow, take us to the emergency room please, no one’s been here for hours. We haven’t dared to go ourselves because the area is full of holes and potholes from the work.”

Rapha explained that he was on a motorbike and that they could only go one at a time. He helped Alice up, told her to hold on tight, and they set off while he noticed Alice’s breasts placed on his back.